No new stimulus needed as economy remains stable

Policymakers to focus on present growth plans; effects of quake 'are temporary'

Experts on Monday ruled out the need for any extra economic stimulus, in the wake of Saturday's earthquake that struck Ya'an, Sichuan province, insisting the effects of the disaster will be "regional and temporary", in monetary terms.

Although official figures are still unavailable, Beijing-based Anbound Consulting has estimated direct economic losses in Ya'an to be around 42 billion yuan ($6.8 billion), or 5 percent of that reported in the 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan province.

In November 2008, the central government launched a 4-trillion-yuan stimulus program, just six months after a magnitude-8.0 earthquake claimed nearly 70,000 lives in the province, and caused more than 850 billion yuan in direct economic losses, almost 3 percent of GDP in that year.

Zhang Ping, the former head of the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planning agency, said in March 2009 that 1 trillion yuan of that package was invested to the post-earthquake reconstruction program.

The actual investment reached 1.7 trillion yuan when reconstruction was completed in early 2012, according to Sichuan provincial government.

However, Liu Shangxi, deputy director of the Research Institute for Fiscal Science under the Ministry of Finance, said on Monday that although the Chinese economy faces the challenge of two unexpected natural events - H7N9 avian flu and the earthquake - any economic stimulus similar to that of 2008 was unlikely.

"More stimulus is the last thing we need at the moment," he said, explaining that the economy is now on an overall stable trend, and macroeconomic policies would not be affected by Ya'an's 7.0-magnitude quake.