China said Friday the fundamentals of its economy remained strong amid the global financial crisis and it was confident of maintaining fast growth. Following a slew of figures released this week showing growth in the world's fourth largest economy was continuing to slow, senior government officials sought to reassure the world that China could weather the storm. “The origin of the financial crisis is outside the country and its impact on our financial system is limited. The fundamentals of our economy are still good,” National Development and Reform Commission vice chairman Mu Hong said. The comments came as Chinese President Hu Jintao prepared to attend a weekend summit in the United States of the world's 20 richest economies and emerging heavyweights on how to deal with the crisis. Mu pointed to China's newly announced stimulus package worth four trillion yuan ($586 billion) as proof of the government's commitment to keeping the economy growing swiftly, and therefore helping the rest of the world. “I think the central government's decision to make significant changes to economic policy ... showed its firm determination and confidence in stabilizing the economy and maintaining fast growth,” he said. Nevertheless, Mu acknowledged that China faced a huge challenge in dealing with the global meltdown. “Faced with today's severe domestic and overseas situation, whether we can prevent too sharp an economic slowdown and too sharp a swing will be a serious challenge for us,” he said. China's economic growth slipped to 9.0 percent in the third quarter, its slowest pace in five years, and data for October released this week indicated the deceleration was continuing. Industrial production grew 8.2 percent in October from the corresponding month a year ago compared with 11.4 percent in September. Inflation also fell to a 17-month low of 4.0 percent in October, down from 4.6 percent in September and a 12-year high of 8.7 percent in February, bringing deflation on to the government's radar. Speaking at the same briefing on China's response to the financial crisis, central bank vice governor Yi Gang said the nation's banking system had plenty of money, indicating few concerns about a US-style credit crunch. “The liquidity in China's financial market is generally abundant,” Yi said. Yi also said China was not about to panic and sell its enormous US assets.
