BEIJING: China is on course for another five years of robust growth although inflation threatens social stability and must be tamed, Premier Wen Jiabao said Saturday. In China's version of a "State of the Union" address to the annual parliament session, Wen said the top priority this year was to curb price rises that are making life difficult for ordinary people. But in laying out a plan for the next five years, he said the drivers of China's meteoric economic rise were still in place and that the government was in an even stronger position to steer the world's second-largest economy toward prosperity. "From a domestic perspective, factors favoring China's development and the positive long-term development have not changed," Wen said in a work report to the National People's Congress. With tens of millions of people moving to cities from farms, the country further opening to global trade and investment and factories and computers spreading deeper into the hinterland, China would aim for growth of 7 percent a year from 2011 to 2015. That would mark a slowdown from the 11.2 percent China averaged over the past five years. But the target is more of a worst-case scenario than a true forecast - from 2006 to 2010, it had aimed for 7.5 percent growth. "There is huge potential demand in the market, the supply of funds is ample, the overall scientific and educational level of the people is rising," Wen said. "The government's ability to exercise overall control and respond to major challenges has increased significantly." The premier's annual address is given in the cavernous Great Hall of the People, crowded with thousands of delegates vetted by the Communist Party to acclaim and approve its policies. But Wen's televised speech is also aimed at hundreds of millions of ordinary citizens who Party leaders fear could become sources of anger unless grievances about price rises, unaffordable housing and expensive healthcare are eased. Wen made clear that addressing those concerns would preoccupy China's economic policy.
