MNI POLICY:China Confident of Meeting Annual Growth Goals:NDRC

     BEIJING (MNI) - China's strong growth in the first quarter lifted the

government's confidence in meeting all economic and social development targets

this year, the National Development and Reform Commission said on Thursday. 

     Here are some highlights noted by MNI from a briefing by spokesman Yuan Da.

     - The advancement of traditional and emerging industries, robust consumer

demand, stable investment and recovering trade growth assured policymakers that

they are on the right path. Q1's economic indicators are usually the bellwether

of the whole-year growth.

     - The commission will strictly prevent and resolve risks of hidden debt

raised by local governments and closely validate their applications for

construction projects. (Note: The pace of local government bond offering is five

months quicker than last year as the Ministry of Finance actively pushed for

their usage to finance investment.)

     -The government will further reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) by

rolling out the fourth stage of mixed-ownership restructuring, which will

involve more companies and industries.  

     -The commission confirmed that the government will weed out industries

deemed polluting and redundant through a blacklist introduced earlier this

month. These include high-polluted coal and steal production,underdeveloped

metal smelting, unsafe medicine making, which will be barred from receiving

investments or having their products exported. 

     ***China's Q1 GDP growth held steady at 6.4%, matching Q4 last year and

beating most economists' forecast. Industrial output jumped to 8.5% from 5.3%,

investment rose to 6.3% from 6.1%, while retail sales picked up 0.5 percentage

point to 8.7%.

--MNI Beijing Bureau; +86 10 8532 5998; email: william.bi@mni-news.com

--MNI Beijing Bureau; +86 (10) 8532-5998; email: iris.ouyang@marketnews.com

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