China could overheat with 16% growth, admits researchers...

China could overheat with 16% growth, admits researchers...
The Financial Express, January 12, 2010, Page 18

Bloomberg

China’s economy may grow as much as 16% this year with accelerating inflation and the risk of a property bubble unless policy makers reduce stimulus measures, government researchers said on Monday.

“If the government continues with the same strength of macro-economic stimulus as in 2009, there will be notable economic overheating in 2010,” Yao Zhizhong and He Fan, economists with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an article published in the official China Securities Journal.

A stronger-than-estimated trade rebound in December may give policy makers more room to pare stimulus measures after record lending in 2009. The central bank last week guided three-month bill yields higher for the first time since August and may lift the benchmark one-year lending rate to 5.85% by year-end from 5.31%, economists forecast. China’s exports grew 17.7% last month from a year earlier, the first increase in more than a year, and imports rose to a record, customs data showed on Sunday.