China, US should resume timely communication on trade: China adviser

[BEIJING] China and the United States should resume timely communication on trade and other issues, a former senior Chinese official said on Thursday, stressing that the world's two biggest economies are too intertwined to be decoupled.

Zhu Guangyao, an adviser to the cabinet and former vice finance minister, made the remarks at a briefing in Beijing.

The room for China to support the economy through fiscal and monetary policies is "very big", said Wang Zhaoxing, another cabinet adviser at the briefing.

China should prepare for a long battle to prevent and resolve financial risks and control shadow banking and financing to (the) property sector, Mr Wang added.

Liu Huan, a third cabinet adviser, said he expected China's economy to rebound sharply in the third quarter of this year.

Mr Liu told reporters after the briefing that he believed China's economic growth could be about 5 per cent in the third quarter.

The economy contracted 6.8 per cent in the first quarter from a year earlier, shrinking for the first time in decades, as the outbreak of the new coronavirus paralysed production and hit spending.

REUTERS