What impact has SARS brought to China s economy? How will the Chinese Government handle it?
The SARS epidemic is an unexpected disaster and has indeed brought negative impact on China s economic development, in particular on some sectors. However, the overall outlook of China s economy is good and many favorable conditions for the economic growth still exist. SARS will not fundamentally change the grand momentum of China s economic growth. In general, China s economy is now in steady progress. Its GDP growth rate reached 8.9% in April, remaining a fairly high level. The Chinese Government attaches great importance to the negative impact of SARS on its national economy. The State Council has held several meetings and stressed that equal emphasis should be put to both the prevention and control of SARS and the economic development and construction. Despite the relaxation of the SARS epidemic at present, all the Chinese people are continuing to take effective measures to jointly combat the disease. We remain convinced that the effective measures adopted so far will help reduce t
