CCTV News: Recently, a relevant responsible person from the Ministry of Finance accepted an interview with reporters on issues related to Fitch's downgrading of our sovereign credit rating.
Reporter's question: On April 3, Fitch released a report, deciding to lower China's sovereign credit rating "A+" to "A". What does the Ministry of Finance think about this?
A: During this re-evaluation process, we had a lot of in-depth communication with the Fitch rating team. Although Fitch admitted that China has a more stable economic growth prospect and a key position in global trade than other economies with the same rating, it is biased to stick to the original rating method and downgrade our sovereign credit rating. It cannot fully and objectively reflect China's actual situation and the consensus of the international and domestic markets on the recovery and improvement of China's economy. We deeply regret and do not recognize this.
China's economic foundation is stable, has many advantages, strong resilience and great potential. The long-term positive support conditions and basic trends have not changed, and the general trend of high-quality economic development has not changed. In 2024, the GDP was 134.9 trillion yuan, an increase of 5%, ranking among the forefront of the world's major economies. At present, from the perspective of production factors, China's advantages such as talent dividends, existing capital, and technological progress have been further accumulated; from the perspective of structural transformation, emerging economies, urbanization, and market-oriented reforms have huge potential; from the perspective of macro policies, countercyclical regulation efficiency has been continuously improved, the results of deepening reform and opening up have been continuously revealed, and the momentum of positive economic development has been continuously consolidated and strengthened.
Since this year, as various macroeconomic policies continue to work hard, the national economy continues to move forward and the quality of development has steadily improved. Recently, the IMF and the World Bank have both raised China's economic growth rate in 2025. The United Nations and OECD predict that China's GDP growth rate will be above 4.5% this year, close to the expected growth target of about 5% set by the Chinese government. The international capital market has also revaluated China's assets and is bullish on China.
Overall, the endogenous driving force, market vitality, policy efficiency and development resilience of China's economic growth have all been improved in all aspects, the positive momentum is continuing to consolidate, and new growth space is opening up. In the next step, China will continue to implement more proactive fiscal policies and moderately loose monetary policies, and pay more attention to the policy "combination punch". Fiscal policy will strengthen coordination and cooperation with currency, employment, industry, region, trade and other policies and reform and opening-up measures, enhance policy synergy, and accumulate strength and empower China's economic growth. The Chinese government has also reserved sufficient policy space and will promptly study and dynamically adjust policy reserves according to changes in the situation to ensure the sustained and healthy development of China's economy, and also bring more opportunities to the world.
