China will hit economic growth target, NBS spokesman

China has shown signs of stabilizing and the country is poised to hit its annual growth target of 7.5 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) spokesman Sheng Laiyun said at a Foreign Ministry conference on Monday. China's gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed to 7.6 percent in the January-June period of 2013, the weakest first-half performance in three years, but was in line with market expectations, Sheng said. According to the latest data released by the NBS in July, industrial added value increased 9.7 percent year on year, with the growth rate up 0.8 percentage points from June, indicating confidence in Chinese enterprises, Sheng said. The Chinese government has unveiled a number of policies to cope with downward pressure and has created room for further economic rebalancing efforts, Sheng said. "I do have confidence in China's economy," Sheng added. Sheng also expressed his confidence in China's dealing with local government debt. An audit conducted in 2011 by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that local government debt totaled 10.7 trillion yuan at the end of 2010, more than 26 percent of GDP. In early June this year, the NAO said a follow-up audit found total debt of 3.85 trillion yuan owned by 36 local governments by the end of 2012, up 12.9 percent from 2010. The Chinese government has created many policies to regulate this area in recent years and the NAO started a nationwide audit of government-related debt. "The debt is under control," Sheng said.