By Shen Qing

BEIJING, Jan. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese economy will maintain stable growth in 2014, in spite of a four-month low Purchasing Managers' Index PMI.

According to data jointly released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP), the PMI for December further retreated to 51 from 51.4 in November.

However, the Chinese government holds optimistic attitude on economy growth and is about to take measurements to further boost it in the new year.

Premier Li Keqiang said that Chinese economy and financial market will grow steadily in 2014.

For this, Li added, the government will maintain liquidity at a proper level, sustain the reasonable growth of monetary credit and social financing, as well as keep prices stable.

Qu Hongbin, chief economist for China at HSBC, saw the PMI decline as mainly due to slower output growth.

But he said, “The recovering momentum since August 2013 is continuing into 2014, in our view. With inflation still benign, we expect the current monetary and fiscal policy to remain in place to support growth.”

NBS economist Zhao Qinghe said that low PMI indicator is due to the seasonal factors.

"The PMI figure still shows expansion in December, and it has remained above 50 for 15 consecutive months, which means the general industrial situation is stable," Zhao stressed.

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