China's GDP grew by 11.4% in 2007, up a third of a percent year-on-year.

The National Bureau of Statistics says consumption contributed 4.4 percentage points, slightly higher than that of investment growth.

Economists believe that the main reason behind the rising consumption is the switch of the Chinese growth pattern in the past few years.

Li Daokui is a researcher from Tsinghua University.

In the past few years, the government has been putting more and more efforts into supporting the infrastructure and supporting various policies to stimulate personal consumption in the Chinese economy. Meanwhile, the Chinese government has been putting lots of effort into slowing down the growth rate of our fixed-asset investment.

In addition, increase of residents' disposable income is also regarded as a main reason for the rising consumption growth.

Wang Yiming is the vice director of the Academy of Macro-economic Research of the State Development Planning Commission.

In 2007, the per capita disposable income was up by 12.2 and 9.5 percent for urban and rural residents respectively, the fastest growing rates in years. The rising of residents' income directly led to more consumption.

But economists have reservations while forecasting the contribution of consumption to GDP in 2008.

Here's Li Daokui again.

The main contribution to economy growth in China is still likely to come from fixed-asset investment, rather than consumption.

Wang Yiming also agrees. He says there is still a long way to go before consumption plays a key role in China's economy.

Liao Jibo, CRI News