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Download For the first time since the beginning of China's complex economic transition, a government official said on Monday the minimum level of annual economic growth acceptable to the central government is 7 percent. But based on recent economic data, for August in particular, China is almost certain to be able to achieve growth no lower than 7.5 percent in 2013, Yang Shubing, a senior official at the National Policy Research Office of the State Council, said at a news briefing. Yang said that in coming years China will have to achieve minimum growth of 7 percent to double the size of the economy from 2010 to 2020, as promised at the 18th Communist Party of China National Congress last year. Sheng Laiyun, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, said the government's minimum-growth tolerance level represents a comprehensive assessment of GDP growth and other factors like employment. In a sign of the leadership's confidence in employment, Premier Li Keqiang disclosed in an article published last week in the Financial Times that in the first half of this year unemployment stood at around 5 percent, according to a survey. The government earlier announced that registered urban unemployment had stood at 4.1percent for a long period. As for economic growth in 2013, Yang said electricity generation, a key indicator of the economy's vibrancy, rose for a fifth month in August and increased by 13.4 percent from a year ago. | 
