Economists: rising unemployment becomes China's top challenge

BEIJING, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- A survey conducted by China Economic Monitoring and Analysis Center predicted that rising unemployment would be the biggest challenge for China's economy this year.
The survey showed, more than 90 percent of the 100 economists surveyed expressed their worries over the country's increasing unemployment rate, which had added woes to a world economic downturn.
Chairman and chief executive officer of TX Investment Consulting Co., Lin Yixiang was quoted by China Daily as saying that the survey indicated the government policies should be directed at addressing unemployment.
The government estimates about 20 million rural migrants, or 15.3 percent of all rural workers employed outside their hometowns, have returned home without jobs.
Meanwhile. urban unemployment rate, which excludes migrant workers, was estimated to hit 4.6 percent in 2009, up from 4.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008.
The number reflects a harder-than-expected blow from the global financial crisis, Tang Min, deputy secretary of the China Development Research Foundation, was quoted by China Daily as saying.
Worldwide global financial crisis has put the country's economic growth under great pressure. China's economy cooled to its slowest pace in seven years in 2008, expanding 9 percent year-on-year, according to data released by NBS.
The 9-percent rate was the lowest since 2001, when an annual rate of 8.3 percent was recorded, and it was the first time China's GDP growth fell into the single-digit range since 2003.
To cope with this, the government has launched a 4 trillion economic stimulus package last November, in a bid to expend investment in infrastructure and prevent economy from cooling too fast.
As for this, 86 percent of economists said the government should focus its fiscal policy on social spending, including education, medical care and improving the social security system.