Fears that the Chinese economy is overheating mounted after official figures revealed that it grew faster than expected at the end of last year and inflation remained above target.

Southern Guangdong province, home to China’s biggest regional economy, added to concerns by announcing a 26 per cent rise in its minimum wage.

The national economy grew at an annual rate of 9.8 per cent in the final quarter of 2010, and by 10.3 per cent for the entire year.

Consumer price inflation fell to 4.6 per cent in December, after reaching a more than two-year high of 5.1 per cent the previous month.

But analysts said prices would accelerate strongly in the first quarter of this year, complicating efforts to cool the economy without triggering a sharp slowdown. For the whole year, consumer prices rose 3.3 per cent, above Beijing’s target of 3 per cent. Food prices were the main culprit, increasing 7.2 per cent.

“The growth figures will encourage Beijing to act more decisively on taming inflation, which means more interest rate hikes are just around the corner,” said Qu Hongbin, an economist at HSBC. The Shanghai Composite, China’s benchmark stock market index, dropped 2.9 per cent on Thursday amid fears of monetary tightening.

Inflation, labour shortages and a series of strikes in major industrial areas last year have led to minimum wage increases across China. This month the Beijing municipal government increased minimum wages by 21 per cent. Officials hope higher wages will increase domestic consumption and help China become less reliant on low-cost manufacturing, exports and investment for growth.

Geoffrey Crothall of the China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based advocacy group, said the wage hike might not be enough to ease the labour shortages in Guangdong province, which accounts for much of the global production of everything from mobile phones to sports shoes.

Faced with rising inflation, Beijing has raised the amount banks must hold on reserve seven times over the past year, and increased interest rates twice in the fourth quarter. These attempts to rein-in loose monetary conditions have only been partially successful.

To get around tighter lending quotas, Chinese banks moved trillions of renminbi in loans off their balance sheets last year, repackaging them as wealth management products.

On Thursday, the Chinese banking regulator ordered banks to bring an estimated Rmb1,660bn ($252bn) of off- balance sheet lending back on to their books this year. Government attempts to manage liquidity have been further complicated by non-bank lending, which authorities have great difficulty quantifying.

According to a central bank survey, total non-bank lending amounted to about Rmb240bn last year, equivalent to 5.6 per cent of total lending. But central bank officials told the Financial Times that the true scale of informal and underground lending was likely much larger.

Learning to learn:

第一段開篇點題，只用了一句話，就說明了下文要涉及的話題。見到這樣的長句我們要學來為我所用哦，分析一下這句話的主干，請用Fears that…開頭早一句話。

Language Points:

1. inflation 通貨膨脹 2. culprit 主要原因，罪魁禍首

Oral Topic:

What are the advantages and disadvantages of raising wages for your employees?

此題為BEC考試口試task2部分模擬

譯文參考：

各方對于中國經濟正出現過熱現象的擔憂有所加劇。此前官方數據顯示，中國經濟去年末的增速快于預期，而通脹仍高于目標水平。

中國最大的經濟省份——廣東省宣布將其最低工資標準提高26%，更是加劇了人們的憂慮。

中國經濟2010年第四季度同比增長9.8%，全年增長10.3%。

12月消費者價格指數(CPI)為4.6%，較11月5.1%的逾兩年高位有所回落。

但分析師們表示，中國消費價格將在今年首季強勁加速上漲，使政府給經濟降溫而又不至引發急劇減速的努力變得更加棘手。全年而言，消費價格上漲3.3%，高于北京方面制定的3%的目標水平。食品價格上漲7.2%，是推動通脹上揚的主要因素。

“這些增長數據將鼓勵北京方面采取更果斷行動制伏通脹，這意味著更多加息即將出臺，”匯豐(HSBC)經濟學家屈宏斌表示。中國基準股指——上證綜指周四下滑2.9%，市場擔心中國將收緊貨幣政策。

通脹、勞動力短缺和去年在幾個工業重鎮發生的一系列罷工，已導致中國各地紛紛提高最低工資標準。本月，北京市政府將最低工資提高21%。官員們希望，較高的工資將增加國內消費，有助于中國在增長方面減輕對低成本制造、出口和投資的依賴。

位于中國香港的維權集團中國勞工通訊(China Labour Bulletin)的杰弗里•克羅塞爾(Geoffrey Crothall)表示，加薪也許不足以緩解廣東省的勞動力短缺。從手機到運動鞋，廣東省在許多產品的全球生產中占據了相當大的比重。

面對不斷上升的通脹，北京方面過去一年已7次上調銀行存款準備金率，并在第四季度兩次加息。這些措施旨在收斂寬松的貨幣政策條件，但僅在一定程度上取得了成功。

為了避開收緊后的放貸指標，中國各銀行去年將上萬億元人民幣的貸款轉出自己的資產負債表，將其重新打包成理財產品。

周四，中國銀監會責令各銀行今年將估計為1.66萬億元人民幣(合2520億美元)的表外放貸轉回表內。旨在管理流動性的政府努力，還因非銀行放貸變得更為復雜，政府在量化非銀行放貸方面遇到極大困難。

根據中國央行的一項調查，去年非銀行放貸達到大約2400億元人民幣，相當于總放貸額的5.6%。但央行官員對英國《金融時報》表示，非正式和地下放貸的真實規模可能要大得多。