2010-08-12 15:02

Though China's consumer price index (CPI) rose in July to its highest level this year, runaway inflation is no longer an urgent concern for Chinese policymakers.

It looks more than likely that the Chinese economy will slow down in the next few months as global growth softens.

Policymakers should grab this opportunity to steer growth to a more sustainable level while a benign soft landing is underway.

Latest statistics have shown that the CPI gained 3.3 percent in July from a year earlier, 0.4 percentage points higher than in June. Policymakers barely breathed a sigh of relief as inflation eased from 3.1 percent in May to 2.9 percent in June.

Even though the July consumer inflation rate has again exceeded the 3-percent full-year ceiling that the government had set, worries on this score are misplaced since growth has slowed to 10.3 percent in the second quarter from a blistering 11.9 percent in the first three months of the year.

There is growing consensus that inflationary pressures are likely to diminish in the coming months.

Although a further decline in growth rate can considerably ease inflationary concerns, it does not automatically guarantee concomitant growth quality and efficiency.

To accelerate changes to China's economic structure, the authorities must make good use of favorable macroeconomic conditions now to implement stricter energy efficiency and pollution standards that were eased not so long ago to meet higher growth targets.