Delegates attend the Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 5, 2009. [Photo:Xinhua/Ju Peng]

Hello and welcome to our program CRI Roundup brought to you by China Radio International.

In this edition, we will focus on China's fiscal and monetary policy in 2010.

2010 is the last year in the country's 11th five-year plan. China will continue its proactive fiscal policy and moderately easy monetary policy next year and endeavor to improve the quality of economic growth.

In this way, doing a good job in the country's economic and social development in the coming year will be the key to dealing with the impact of the international financial crisis and laying a sound foundation for China's 12th five-year plan.

Zhuang Jian, a senior economist at the Asian Development Bank, says the central government has noticed the hidden risk in the 10 trillion yuan, or about 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars, in credit provided this year.

He predicts the government will adjust a series of policies in the first half of 2010 to control the credit increase.

"The increasing amount of credit this year will in a way bring inflation to the national economy. If the rapid credit growth continues next year, I think the central government will adopt some flexible measures to adjust related policies, such as releasing more central bank bills and strengthening the management of credit provided by commercial banks."

Zhou Dadi is an energy expert with China's Development and Reform Commission.

He says that the development of a low-carbon economy is expected to be listed in China's 12th five-year plan.

"For a country like China, the priority is to save energy and reduce gas emissions. Second, to adjust the energy structure; third, we should make more efforts to develop the forest industry to reserve more carbon sink."

Zhou Dadi says many cities and enterprises have recently voluntarily applied to be the test points of the development of a low carbon economy.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government will enhance its efforts in 2010 to promote agricultural development, strengthen produce supply to the market and expand rural demand.

Zhang Zhaoxin, an economist at the Research Center for Rural Economy under the Ministry of Agriculture, says China's agricultural subsidies comply with WTO rules.

"Different countries give subsidies to agriculture in various ways. Agricultural subsidies in Japan, the European Union and South Korea are relatively high. Compared with these countries and regions, China's subsidies are very low. "

China's State Council has said the government will continue to tap into the domestic market for stable and relatively rapid economic growth next year.

The State Council says policies to boost consumption will be further strengthened, and most of the current policies will be continued.

Yuan Gangming, a research fellow at Tsinghua University in Beijing, says it is necessary to continue boosting consumption because the basis for China's economic recovery is still not solid.

"Since this year, the increase of consumption has been playing an important role in economic recovery. At present, we should continue to implement stimulus policies and try to give full play to the role of consumption in boosting economic growth."

One of China's top think-tanks says the Chinese economy will grow by around 9 percent next year if persistent stimulus policies and a world economic revival continue.

The prediction was made by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, or CASS, in its just-released annual Blue Book on the Economy.

Zhang Tao is a researcher from the Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics under CASS. He says the economy will be mainly driven by investment in 2010.

"In 2009, the economy mainly depended on investment for growth. There is no doubt about that. In 2010, I think investment will still fuel the economy but with a slower growth pace. It will grow by 23 percent year-on-year."

The Blue Book says China's total fixed investment in 2009 will expand by 32 percent from last year at a pace that has been the highest in the past 16 years.

It also says this year's consumer price index will stay in negative territory at minus 0.5 percent compared with last year. But the index will climb to a yearly growth of 2 percent with stronger economic recovery in 2010.

And with that, we conclude this edition of CRI Roundup. If you have any comments or suggestions, or would like to listen again to any of our programs, you can visit our website at crienglish.com.

Thank you for listening, and stay tuned for more on China Radio International.