China to put GDP target below 8.0pc in 2012

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BEIJING, Jan 6 (Reuters): China's leadership is targeting growth of less than 8 per cent in 2012 a senior government researcher wrote Friday in the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party.
Lin Zhaomu, a researcher affiliated with China's economic planning agency and the author of key economic documents for the Chinese leadership, wrote that the 2012 target fell between 7 and 8 per cent and had been adjusted to help Beijing deliver on its plan for average GDP growth of 7 per cent in 2011-2015.
A government adviser, who declined to be identified, separately told Reuters that the leadership had set a 7.5 per cent growth target for 2012 at the annual economic working conference last month, Beijing's top economic planning event.
Investors had anticipated a lower growth target to be set in a bid by Beijing to engineer a soft landing for an economy that has boomed for most of the last three decades.
Private sector economists expect annual economic growth slowed to below 9 per cent in the last three months of 2011, though they still expect full year growth to be around the 9 per cent mark. Q4 GDP data is due to be published on January 17.