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government noticed that some of the institutional purchases might have been made under the guise of mending the damages

from the floods. Thus it called for tighter control over

institutional spending.

7.

The buoyant

economic activity caused the rate of

inflation to edge up during the third quarter of 1991,

reaching a peak of 4.4% in August. For the first three

quarters as a whole, the overall rate of inflation was

still low, averaging at 2.5%. Thus the target set at the

end of 1990 of keeping the rate of inflation in 1991 below

6% will certainly be achieved. However, the inflationary

pressures were much higher in the cities where the cost of living index rose by an average of 8% in the first three

quarters of 1991. The rate of increase for this index has

been over 10% since June. Recently, the State Council has

announced that the state purchasing price of wheat will be

raised on 1 April 1992. Apart from increasing further the

state purchasing prices of grain and cotton and the state-fixed selling prices of grain and edible oil, the

government is also planning to raise the prices for coal,

oil, electricity, steel, transportation and

telecommunications.

These measures will exert direct

pressures on the cost of living in the cities and on the

Therefore, the rate of inflation in

crude

cost

of production.

1992 will probably be even higher.

(c) External sector

8.

value

of

amounted

to

to China's

According

Customs Statistics, the

total trade in the first three quarters of 1991

US$93 billion, representing an increase of 19%

terms over the same period in 1990. The growth

exports accelerated in the third quarter. The

visible trade surplus in that quarter, at US$2.6 billion,

was the second largest since the first quarter of 1990 when

in money

rate of

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