China expects its economy to grow around 8 percent in 2010 from a year earlier, says a report to be delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao at the annual parliament session Friday.

Setting the 8-percent target mainly "aims at ensuring the quality of economic growth, focusing on transformation of economic development pattern and adjustment of economic structure," says the report distributed to media before the opening of the 3rd Session of the 11th National People's Congress, the country's top legislature.

The increase of consumer price index, a main gauge of the country's inflation, will be held around 3 percent, it says.

Although the development environment this year may be better than 2009, China "will still face a complicated situation," reads the report.

The year of 2010 will be a "crucial but complicated" year for China's economic development as the country will continue fighting against the global financial crisis while maintaining a stable and comparatively fast economic growth and the accelerating transformation of growth pattern, according to the report.

As the first country emerging from the global economic downturn, China's gross domestic product (GDP) rose 8.7 percent in 2009 from a year earlier, above the 8-percent target the government set at the beginning of last year.

China's quarterly economic growth accelerated as the government's economic stimulus package started to pay off. The national economy rose 6.2 percent in the first quarter last year, 7.9 percent in the second quarter, 9.1 percent in the third and 10.7 percent in the fourth.

(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2010)