BEIJING, Aug 18 (Xinhua): The overall trend of stable and rapid development of the Chinese economy would not alter after the Olympic Games, a senior expert said here yesterday.
"The Olympics will not become a watershed of China's economic development, as the fundamental factors that have supported China's economic progress in the past 30 years are not to change markedly," Wang Yiming, an expert with the think tank under the National Development and Reform Commission, told a press conference.
Wang listed such factors as the country's high deposit rate, large scale urbanisation and infrastructure investment, upgrading of residents consumption modes, huge market potentials as well as its active and voluntary integration into economic globalisation.
"These driving forces will not change with the finishing of the Olympic Games," he said.
Besides, the Olympic economy exerted a relatively small impact on a country as big as China, Wang said. "After 30 years of development, China has turned into the fourth biggest economy of the world."
He said, "although the Olympic economy has contributed much to Beijing's economic development, the city's economy only accounted for 3.6 per cent of that of the whole country. Besides, Beijing's venue and infrastructure investment only accounted for 0.55-1.06 per cent of China's overall fixed assets investment in the past four years."
"So the 'post-Olympics effect' will not affect the basics of China's economic development."
Besides, the expert said, China was still in the middle of industrialisation. "From cities to the countryside, and from infrastructure to manufacturing and service industries, all harbour great development potentials."
The Chinese government has made ensuring a stable and rapid development of the economy and curbing rapid price rise as its top priorities, and was taking measures to increase domestic demand, he said.
Meanwhile, China's employment situation would maintain stable development after the Olympic Games, a senior official said.
Hu Xiaoyi, vice minister of Labour and Social Security, told a press conference that nearly 10 million urban people were newly employed each year in the past few years, with the figure rising to 12 million last year.
He said the Olympics did help promote industrial development, but "the Games were just for a while, and the employment development should be judged in accordance with the overall economic situation."
With the fluctuating global economic situation, some industries created fewer jobs, he said, noting that despite the pressure, the Chinese government would continue working hard to propel employment development forward.
Statistics show that during the first half of this year, 6.4 million urban people were newly employed in China, accounting for 64 per cent of the projected 10 million for the whole year.
As of the end of June, registered urban unemployment stood at 8.35 million, up 100,000 from the end of the first quarter. Authorities attributed the rise to the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that rocked southwest China on May 12.
