SHIPPING OUT: A container ship stops at Ningpo Port in Zhejiang Province. From January to November, foreign trade growth in Zhejiang declined, but private companies still act as the driving force, contributing 54.8 percent to the province's trade volume (WANG DINGCHANG)

China's GDP will maintain a growth rate of about 8.9 percent in 2012, said the annual economic blue book released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) on December 7. Though the growth speed is lower than in 2011, it is still a relatively high rate.

Released annually since 1992, the blue book is produced by the CASS with input from scholars, government agencies, research institutes and universities by analyzing the economic landscape and government economic policies.

Chen Jiagui, Director of the CASS Economic Department, said the Chinese economy is stable with appropriate ups and downs. A growth rate of 8-9 percent is ideal to create a good macroeconomic environment for deepening the reform, controlling inflation, adjusting the economic structure and transforming the economic growth pattern.

The Chinese economy has slowed down in the last two years, arousing worries from home and abroad about the Chinese economy's expected hard landing. Such worries are obviously unnecessary and the Chinese economy will continue to make contributions to the world economic recovery.

The situation

According to the blue book, compared with 2011, the Chinese economy will face new challenges next year. China mainly faced pressure from rapid inflation in 2011, causing the task of curbing inflation to top the list of government priorities for macro-controls. But in 2012 when the economic growth will likely slow, China needs to both stabilize the economic growth speed and further curb inflation and strengthen macro-control efforts.

Chen said thanks to the efforts in 2011, the rapidly growing prices have been curbed to some extent, but the main factors causing rapid price rises have remained unchanged. Today, prices in China are affected by the relationship between supply and demand, as well as the rising costs. Of the total, the producer price index (PPI) is mainly influenced by the relationship between supply and demand, while the consumer price index (CPI) is influenced by the rising costs.

The blue book says the CPI in 2012 will continue to rise, if only mildly. Considering rising international oil prices, China will face bigger pressures to reform its resource price scheme, so the CPI is expected to grow about 4 percent in 2012.

Next year will also be a year for China to formulate detailed measures to realize the goals for the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15). When readjusting the economic structure, China should also ensure economic growth is stable, which is never easy.

More importantly, the international economic situation is more and more complicated. Li Yang, Vice President of the CASS, said the Chinese Government used to think the situation in 2010 would be the most complicated, but the present situation may be more complicated, because both domestic and world economic situations are changing, with many new factors emerging, especially those that have not been anticipated.

Li thought from 2012 the world economy may remain in the doldrums for five to 10 years or even longer. Therefore "maintaining economic growth" will become a common topic for the whole world.

According to Li, among the major economies worldwide, the U.S. is not optimistic about its economy, while Europe faces a worsening situation and even needs help from the United States.

"The Euro needs rescue from the U.S. dollar for survival, which is a matter worthy of attention," Li said.

Japan has its own mess to deal with. The Japanese economy may see growth this year instead of decline in 2010. Research suggests it will continue to see meager growth in the following two years.

Developing economies also face some problems after years of high-speed development. The economies of India, Brazil, Russia and South Africa will be in the downturn, while economies of other African and Latin American countries will not be better than this year, troubled by imbalanced internal structures and impacts of the international environment.