CHINA does not intend to use a cheaper yuan as a way to boost exports and has the tools to keep the currency stable, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in a meeting with the president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Xinhua news agency reported Saturday.

    “China has no intention of stimulating exports via competitive devaluation of currencies,” Li said at the meeting in Beijing, which marks China’s previously announced official entry into the bank.

    The premier added that China is capable of keeping the yuan’s exchange rate basically stable at an appropriate and balanced level.

    After a nearly 3 percent devaluation in mid August 2015 which rattled markets, China’s yuan has fallen over 1 percent so far in 2016, as the nation has struggled to contain capital outflows in the wake of a dramatic equity market collapse and weak economic data.

    Despite recent declines, China has the world’s largest foreign exchange reserves, and policymakers have repeatedly said they have the firepower to keep the yuan stable.

    (SD-Agencies)

    GDP grows by around 7%

    CHINA’S gross domestic product (GDP) totaled more than US$10 trillion in 2015 and the economy grew by around 7 percent, with the services sector accounting for half of GDP, Premier Li Keqiang said Saturday.

    The premier also said that employment had expanded more than expected with 900 million people making up the country’s total workforce, including 150 million skilled professionals.

    Consumption contributed nearly 60 percent of growth, the premier said, at the opening ceremony for the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in Beijing.

    China’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2015 GDP figures are expected to be released tomorrow.

    Analysts polled by Reuters have forecast 2015 growth cooled to 6.9 percent, down from 7.3 percent in 2014 and the slowest pace in a quarter of a century.(SD-Agencies)

    Power consumption up 0.5%

    CHINA’S power consumption in 2015 rose 0.5 percent from a year earlier to 5.550 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh), figures from the National Energy Administration (NEA) showed.

    The NEA did not break out figures for December, or for wind and solar power. But Reuters calculations suggest that China’s power consumption stood at 500.7 billion kWh in December, down 2.1 percent year on year.

    Total generating capacity rose 10.4 percent in 2015, with a 29.9 percent jump in nuclear power capacity, the administration said in a statement published on its website.

    Thermal power, mainly coal, accounted for 65.7 percent of China’s total power generating capacity by the end of the year, down from 67.3 percent in 2014.

    Nur Bekri, head of the NEA, said in December that coal will make up 62.6 percent of the country’s primary energy needs in 2016, as opposed to 64.4 percent last year, according to Xinhua.(SD-Agencies)