China'economic impact - World Bank s storms to have limited


BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - The recent winter storms are likely to have only a short-term impact on China's economy this year, and could even stimulate domestic investment, said an economist with the World Bank.
Louis Kuijs, economist and main author of the bank's quarterly update on the Chinese economy, told journalists that most of the impact of the storms -- including rising food prices and a decline in industrial output over January and February -- will turn out to be temporary, and that there "could be some pick-up (later in the year) as investment takes place to solve the bottlenecks"
Although a number of economists have lowered their forecasts for China's economic growth this year in response to the mayhem caused by the coldest winter in a century, the World Bank has maintained its estimate of 9.6 pct GDP growth in 2008.
"Natural disasters normally call for economic activity to repair the damage," said David Dollar, the head of the bank's China office.