A government think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says it expects the country’s economy to slow in newly issued blue book analyzing and forecasting the economy for 2012.

It expects the country’s GDP growth to reach 8.9 percent in 2012, if "there is no significant deterioration in the global economic and political conditions and no serious natural disasters nor other problems at home." It forecasts the GDP growth rate to rise 9.2 percent year-on-year in 2011, down 1.2 percent on 2010.

CASS attributes the slowdown to a combination of various factors including a volatile world economic recovery and the country’s tight monetary policy. It also expects the country’s consumer prices to rise by 4.6 percent in 2012, down from the 5.5 percent it forecast for this year.