BEIJING - The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a government think tank, on Wednesday lowered its growth forecast of China's GDP for 2011 to 9.2 percent from the previous 9.4 percent.

CASS attributed the growth slowdown to the combination of various factors including a volatile world economic recovery and the country's tight monetary policy.

It expected the country's GDP growth to reach 8.9 percent in 2012 if "there is no significant deterioration in the global economic and political conditions and no serious natural disasters nor other problems at home."

It also projected the country's consumer prices to rise by 4.6 percent in 2012, down from the 5.5 percent it forecast for this year.

In October of this year, CASS issued a report on macro economy, forecasting the country's GDP to rise 9.4 percent year-on-year in 2011.

China's GDP rose 10.4 percent year-on-year in 2010. In the first three quarters of this year, its GDP grew 9.4 percent from one year earlier.