ADB: 10% growth for China's economy in 2008

The Asian Development Bank said in a report that it expects China's economy to grow by 10% in 2008 and 9.8% in 2009, state media reported. China's economy grew by 11.4% in 2007. The bank said that tighter monetary policy and slowing imports would put pressure on growth, and highlighted the inflationary risk of rising food prices. The bank also outlined a worst-case scenario that would see growth decline to as low as 7% this year in the event of continuing global economic weakness, tightening of credit, and a major downturn in China's property and stock markets. The report predicted inflation would rise to 5.5% this year, from 4.8% in 2007, and that exports would slow by 19% from last year. Earlier this week, the World Bank trimmed its expectations for China's growth in 2008 to 9.4% from 9.6%.