[advertise]广告[/advertise]STATE leaders may highlight inflation concerns at a meeting this month to set economic priorities for 2010 without changing existing fiscal and monetary policies, economists said. “Immediate concerns about the recovery are still likely to dominate,” Mark Williams, a London-based economist for Capital Economics Ltd., said Tuesday. He predicts “only a moderate shift” in policy stance, perhaps by adding “stable prices” as a goal. China’s annual central economic work conference may be held before the end of November, according to media reports. Policymakers weighing when to reduce stimulus measures must balance the strength of the recovery in the world’s third-biggest economy against the risks of bad loans, asset bubbles and resurgent inflation. The meeting is likely to endorse the existing “proactive” fiscal policy and “relatively loose” monetary stance, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said in a report Tuesday, adding the government is not yet ready to roll out an exit strategy. “Fine-tuning” may include highlighting concerns such as inflation, asset prices and structural reforms, the report said. The government may significantly tighten lending and investment in April next year, when the global recovery is on a firmer footing and investment in China is showing signs of overheating, the report said. Policymakers will put an increased emphasis next year on preventing asset price fluctuations that could hurt the economy, the China Securities Journal said in a front-page opinion piece yesterday. The central bank has room to raise reserve requirements for banks, the newspaper said, adding that there is no sign that interest rates will increase soon. An unprecedented US$1.3 trillion of loans this year and a US$586 billion stimulus package running through 2010 drove a rebound in the third quarter to the fastest expansion in a year, when the economy grew 8.9 percent. The key one-year lending rate is at a five-year low of 5.31 percent and the central bank has kept the yuan almost unchanged against the U.S. dollar since July last year to help exporters weather the global economic crisis. The State Council said Oct. 21 that the policy focus for coming months would be to “balance the need to maintain stable and relatively fast growth, the need to adjust the economic structure and the need to better manage inflationary expectations.” Property prices are climbing and the Shanghai Composite Index has gained more than 75 percent this year. The nation needs to tackle the risks of “asset price bubbles and misallocation of resources,” the World Bank said Nov. 4. China may need to rein in credit growth to tame inflationary pressures and keep asset bubbles from emerging as growth accelerates, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said last week. Source: Shenzhen Daily (SD-Agencies)