President Hu Jintao yesterday said the Chinese mainland's economy grew by 10.2 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of this year, but expressed concern about the rapid growth.

"The mainland economy maintained good developmental momentum with our gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter rising by 10.2 per cent," Hu told Lien Chan, former chairman of Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang (KMT).

The mainland's economy expanded by 9.9 per cent in 2005 and the government has set a growth target of 8 per cent for this year.

"Frankly speaking, we do not hope to pursue excessively rapid growth; we are paying more attention to the efficiency and quality of development," the president said.

"We are paying more attention to the transformation of the mode of growth, resource conservation, environmental protection and more importantly, the improvement of the lives of the people."

The median forecast was for first- quarter gross domestic product growth of 9.6 percent from the year earlier period, compared with 9.9 percent in the fourth quarter.

China's economy expanded by an average 10 percent in the past three years driven by an investment boom. Premier Wen Jiabao said the government will tighten controls on fixed-asset investment and lending after reviewing the country's first-quarter performance, the Xinhua News Agency reported on April 14.

China leapfrogged France and the U.K. to become the world's fourth-largest economy last year, boosted by the results of a nationwide census in 2004 that showed the $2.26 trillion economy was 17 percent bigger than previously estimated.

The National Bureau of Statistics is due to release GDP figures and other economic data for March at 10 a.m. in Beijing on April 20.