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Finance Ministry: Moody’s Has a Biased View of China’s Economy

Xinhua carried an article on the reaction from Lou Jiwei, China’s Finance Minister, to Moody’s recent downgrade of its outlook for China. The article wrote that Lou spoke at a press conference in Washington DC on April 15 and claimed that Moody gave the rating because it has a biased view and does not reflect the reality of China’s economic status. Lou quoted figures that the Ministry of Statistics recently released for the first three months of this year. They showed that the growth of China’s GDP was at 6.7 percent. Lou called that a pretty good number. Lou also stated that the central administration has launched measures to control the growth of local debt and has additional plans to control the growth of debt using a plan to turn the debt into equity.  The article then quoted statements from a number of officials who denounced Moody’s downgrade. According to the article, this is not the first time that Lou expressed his opinion about the downgrade. On March 20, Lou publically stated that he “does not care” about the downgrade.

Source: Xinhua, April 18, 2016
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2016-04/18/c_128904588.htm