LISA BARRON, CNN ANCHOR: As CNN's Jaime FlorCruz reports, China may be the region's fastest growing economy, but times are still tough, depending on where you look.</s>JAIME FLORCRUZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These men are not exactly happy campers. As construction workers on the roads project in Beijing, these migrant farmers earn a measly $80 a month, but still, they say, it beats being unemployed in their south China villages.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): To come here and find jobs -- of course that's a good thing.</s>FLORCRUZ: These infrastructure jobs have employed millions of idle farmer, boosted growth, and averted the kind of economic downturn that is now battering Asia. Much help came from overseas investment. In the past 6 months alone, investors poured in more than $24 billion. They are attracted to the vast domestic market and anticipate China's admission into the World Trade Organization. To boost spending, Beijing has cut bank interest rates, subsidized salaries and unemployment dole outs, and even declared long weekend holidays. But not all is red hot. Exports have slowed well below last year's nearly 28 percent spurt. To check this slowdown, Beijing is setting aside more than $18 billion to cover infrastructure projects and other pump-priming measures. So far, such moves have paid off. China's gross domestic product grew nearly 8 percent in the first half of this year.</s>DAVID SETO, ECONOMIST, HSBC CHINA: We do expect a slowdown in the second half of the year, but they will certainly meet their 7 percent target, which, according to international standards, is very, very high.</s>FLORCRUZ (on camera): If China is to become Asia's economic powerhouse, it still must close down bankrupt state enterprises and clean up bad debts in the state banks -- no easy task in hard times. Jaime FlorCruz, CNN, Beijing.
Not All Chinese See Economic Miracle