Associated Press
BEIJING -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged Friday to redouble the country's stimulus program to focus on job creation, signaling that Beijing's main worry is keeping its factories humming and its restive workers making money from strong exports to the world.
Although the Chinese action is helping to keep the world's economy afloat, its priority on domestic jobs could spur frustration among U.S. and other world leaders who want China to use its stimulus package to create more demand for products made outside China.
Wen made his announcement in the government's annual report to China's legislature, pledging that stimulus will continue because the basis of the global recovery remains weak. He set an 8 percent economic growth target for what he called a "crucial year" and warned of continuing economic turbulence from the global financial crisis.
"We still face a very complex situation," Wen said in a nationally televised two-hour speech to nearly 3,000 deputies gathered in the Great Hall of the People for the opening of the National People's Congress. "Many destabilizing factors and uncertainties remain in our external environment."
Wen said China needed to cool inflation, cope with banking risks and boost consumer spending to ease the world's third-largest economy's reliance on exports and investment to drive growth.
Washington is worried about its trade deficit with China, which totaled $226.83 billion in 2009. That's the largest U.S. imbalance with any nation but down 15.4 percent from the record of $268.04 billion set in 2008.
The deficit with China is expected to resume rising in 2010 as the U.S. economy recovers and triggers more orders for Chinese manufacturers of shoes, toys and other low-cost items in high demand by American consumers.
