China's growth to moderate

China's economy grew 10.3 percent in 2010. 2011 could see another good year of growth. AFP/CNA reports:

A Chinese government think tank has forecast the nation's economy will grow around 9.8 per cent this year, with inflation likely to come in at 3.7 per cent, state media reported Sunday.

Experts at the Chinese Academy of Sciences also predicted that gross domestic product would rev up in the latter part of the year, and would be driven largely by domestic consumption, the official China News Service said.

The findings of a Reuters poll released last week showed that most Asian economies are expected to continue to grow briskly this year but so will inflation.

Asia's rapid economic growth will moderate slightly in 2011 even as policymakers combat rising prices with higher interest rates and try to keep local currencies from appreciating too sharply, a Reuters quarterly poll showed...

China's economy is expected to expand by 9.3 percent this year, throttling back from double-digit growth in 2010, but inflation is now tipped to quicken to 4.3 percent, a much faster build-up of price pressures than economists had expected in a similar Reuters poll in October.

Likewise, inflation in India is now seen at 8.8 percent, up from 8.3 percent expected in the October poll...

India, Asia's third-biggest economy, is set to grow at the same robust pace seen over the last fiscal year, averaging at 8.7 percent in the year-ending March 2011, before slowing slightly to 8.5 percent in the following year, the poll showed.

Apart from consumer price inflation, asset price inflation is also a concern. AFP/CNA reports the latest action taken to cool China's property market:

China is to expand its limits on property purchases to second and third-tier cities, a report said Sunday, as it steps up efforts to cool its real estate market.

Authorities have drawn up a list of cities that will have to implement the limits, the Chongqing Evening News quoted an unnamed high-level official at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development as saying.

Qingdao and Jinan in the nation's east are among cities set to put the rules into effect, the report said.