China next year will mainly focus on....>

CHINA PRESS: China next year will mainly focus on proactive fiscal policy, tight

monetary policy and strengthened supervision, the Economic Information Daily, a

newspaper of the official Xinhua News Agency, reported Friday. In a front-page

analysis of this week's Central Economic Work Conference, the newspaper said

that the main theme of maintaining stability while also advancing the economy

was consistent with policy of the past five years. However, China will change

the pace and strength of macro-control, and strengthen coordination between

financial regulators. The conference emphasized keeping a proactive fiscal

policy, meaning that China's fiscal deficit goal could be set at around 3%. The

meeting released signals that more bonds for special projects would be issued,

mainly for environmental protection and poverty reduction programs, which will

support infrastructure investment. Local government debt will be reined in. The

newspaper predicted that although monetary policy changes in Europe and the

United States could affect China's policy, the country will not raise the

benchmark interest rate because it is more concerned with domestic factors.

(Economic Information Daily)