BEIJING - Domestic demand was a key driver of last year's economic growth, which was a good sign for China's adjusted economic structure, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicated Monday.

Domestic demand accounted for 92.1 percent of the country's GDP growth last year, and net exports contributed 7.9 percent, the NBS said in the 2010 Statistics Report released on Monday.

Last year, China's GDP growth reached 10.3 percent - the government's target was 8 percent - 9.5 percent from domestic demand and 0.8 percent from net exports, the report said.

Retail sales of consumer goods increased 18.3 percent, compared with 2009, it said. Sales of gold, silver and jewelry jumped 46 percent year-on-year, and furniture sales surged 37.2 percent while auto sales rose by 34.8 percent.

"Domestic and overseas demand better supported economic growth last year than in 2009," Xie Hongguang, NBS deputy director, said on Monday on the agency's website.

The government had called for adjustments to the economic growth and industrial structure. Premier Wen Jiabao said last year refocusing the economic structure and transforming the growth pattern were top national priorities.

He said China had introduced initiatives to increase domestic consumption, improve energy efficiency and encourage investment in poorer areas.

"If China's economic growth relies more on domestic consumption, it will be steady and sustainable," said Zhuang Jian, a senior economist with the Asian Development Bank.

Foreign trade was a key driving force of the economy, and the large trade surplus brought international pressure and domestic complaints of high pollution and the suppression of wage increases.

Wen said on Sunday the government has set an economic growth target of 7 percent in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), because China cannot "blindly" pursue economic growth that is unsustainable.

The report also emphasized that more support is needed for the grain output, to avert food price increases that would accelerate inflation.

In 2010, China's summer crop decreased 0.3 percent to 123.1 million tons, compared with 2009, while early rice dropped 6.1 percent to 31.32 million tons, both decreases caused by a series of natural disasters.

The government has set an inflation rate of 4 percent this year, and Wen's comments on Sunday that he "will not allow prices to keep soaring out of control", came days before the opening of the annual session of the National People's Congress.

China Daily

(China Daily 03/01/2011 page13)