国内英语新闻:China gov't work report draws global attention

BEIJING, March 6 (Xinhua) -- Foreign scholars and journalists were generally positive in reviewing the government's strategies and outlined the challenges ahead as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's government work report delivered Friday caught wide attention across the world.

Hong Pingfan, chief of the global economic monitoring center of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said the year 2009 saw the world mired in the first global economic recession since World War II.

It was against this background that China launched a massive fiscal stimulus package as part of its strenuous efforts to tackle the crisis, successfully achieving 8 percent growth for the year, he said.

"China has not only realized its own economic growth, but also boosted the confidence of other countries to deal with the financial crisis, giving an impetus to the world economic recovery," he added.

Marcio Pochmann, director of Brazil's Institute of Applied Economic Research, said China's achievements were closely related to the government's role.

"Countries that were more able to cope with the crisis and emerge from it were those with an organized government and with public policies adequate to the moment of crisis," he said.

The Chinese government responded quickly, adopting favorable macro-economic policies and asking major state-owned banks to inject capital into the domestic market, he said.

Japanese research fellow Takashi Sekiyama, from the Tokyo Foundation Policy Research Division, said China's home appliance subsidy programs in rural areas and tax cuts on small cars encouraged consumption.

China's stimulus policies contributed to the swift expansion of investment, he said, adding the Chinese economy's vigorous growth had greatly helped the world economy.

Belgian-Chinese Chamber of Commerce Chairman Bernard Dewit said it was far-sighted for the Chinese government to announce the acceleration of the transformation of the economic growth pattern. In the long run, China couldn't develop its economy continuously only by exporting low-end products such as T-shirts, he said, adding China had to produce more high-end products with high added value.

BBC Chinese Director Li Wen said the Chinese government had to change local officials' views on how to evaluate their achievements in their posts in order to transform the economic growth pattern.

The current situation where officials' achievements were mainly linked to GDP and fiscal revenue should be changed so that local officials would not only pursue rapid economic increase, he said.