Excessive growth of investments and bank loans and unbalanced international trade are still key problems for China, said Ma Kai, minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission, on Friday.

On average, Chinese cities experienced a 30.5 percent growth in capital investment in the first seven months, 3.8 percentage points higher than the same period last year, said the official in a report to the 23rd meeting of the 10th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

In the same period, 115,000 projects of various kinds were launched, 20,000 more than the figure in the same period last year, up 18.4 percent.

In the first seven months, newly-issued bank loans topped 2.35 trillion yuan (293.75 billion U.S. dollars), 926.8 billion yuan (115 billion U.S. dollars) more than the figure for the same period of last year.

China also saw a trade surplus of 76 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 5.7 billion US dollars, in this period, according to the official.

Curbing excessive investment growth has been a key macroeconomic control problem for the government, said Ma. Enormous efforts from people in various areas have eased the problem, but it has not been fundamentally resolved, due to various factors, he added.

The official attributed the excessive investment growth to a blind pursuit of growth and an over-dependence on investment to achieve economic growth. What's more, structural reforms in the sectors of taxation, investment, pricing and finance had not achieved their objectives, he said.

Source: Xinhua