Dai Xianglong, governor of the People's Bank of China, the central bank, said here Sunday that China is capable of financing the building of a well-off society in an all-round way.

By raising funds through various channels, China is capable of accomplishing the objective of quadrupling by 2020 its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2000, Dai, a delegate to the congress, said in an interview with Xinhua.

The goal for China to build a well-off society in an all-round way was put forward by Jiang Zemin in his report to the ongoing 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Dai based his remark on the facts that guided by Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents, China, with a huge domestic market, has already established and is further improving a socialist market system.

Over the past four years, according to Dai, the nation has spent three trillion yuan on infrastructure construction, which has laid the material foundation for a sustained and rapid economic development in the future.
Meanwhile, Dai said, the country's average per capita GDP remains at a relatively low level, compared with developed countries.

"Therefore, China is able to maintain a rapid growth for a fairly long period of time to come," he said.

Dai said the country has basically set up a financial system in compliance with requirements of the socialist market economy, with both the financial market system and financial regulation capacity remarkably improving.

The financial sector is opening to the outside world smoothly, while the exchange rate of Renminbi has remained stable for a long period of time, he said.

Figures from the central bank show that China's money supply reached 17.7 trillion yuan and outstanding loans totaled 13.5 trillion yuan by the end of September.

"Facts prove that the financial system has played an important role in supporting the nation's economic development," Dai said.

On how to raise funds for the building of a well-off society in an all-round way, he said that China has sufficient sources of domestic capital, as the nation's savings rate stood at 39.6 percent in 2001, one of the highest in the world. Outstanding individual deposits have surpassed eight trillion yuan to date.

Meanwhile, the rapid economic development and the improving market system are conducive to promoting inflow of overseas funds, Dai said, predicting the amount of foreign direct investment in China will be more than 50 billion US dollars this year.

"We expect more overseas funds to flow into the country as the business environment keeps improving," Dai said.

He said that the central bank will continue to take a series of measures to implement the state's monetary policy and expand money supply.

Figures show that the nation's money supply has been growing at an annual average rate of 23 percent over the past two decades. Dai forecast that the growth rate of money supply will be higher than that of the national economy plus inflation rate this year.

(xinhua)

Jiang Zemin, in his report to the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, said the Party's door is open to all positive factors of the society, including private entrepreneurs, foreign-invested firm employees, self-employed businessmen and freelance professionals, he also said that the Party should advance with the times. What's your opinion?