Special report: Yearender 2007 

    BEIJING, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The expected double-digit growth for a fifth consecutive year did not necessarily mean the Chinese economy was free from disturbance. A glance through the media catchwords of 2007 may offer a rough idea about the critical issues China has been facing over the past year.

    "Sound and fast"

    To guide national economic development, the Central Economic Work Conference called for a "fast and sound" development in 2005.A year later, the key conference changed the wording into a "sound and fast" development. This year, the conference concluded with "insisting on putting the word 'sound' above everything else".

    The emphasis on "sound" demonstrated the central government's determination in accelerating the shift of economic growth mode and realizing a comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development of the national economy.

    As the Chinese saying goes, "The concept itself is not at all difficult to understand; it's just hard to carry it out". By giving the word "sound" top priority, the government would have to spend a long time before achieving the balances between growth speed and quality, consumption and investment/export, population increase and resources/environment, and above all, the balance between reform and stability.

    Inflation

    Huge rises in food prices lifted the nation's consumer price index to an 11-year high of 6.9 percent in November. Prices of food, which has a 33 percent weighting on the consumer price index(CPI), soared 18.2 percent last month.

    The high inflation, well above the three percent target for all of 2007, had become a major concern of the government for fear it would make the lives of poor people much more difficult.

    The price increases were deemed as "structural and temporary in nature" because the rises were not caused by an imbalance between general social demand and supply. But it was widely believed that China was entering a period when inflation would keep rising.

    The Central Economic Work Conference, which mapped a plan for next year's economic development, took the effort "to prevent structural price increases from becoming evident inflation" as a primary task of the macroeconomic control.

    People might worry about whether or not they would have to pay more money to fill up their shopping basket at a time when the end of the year is approaching.