China regains first place in IMF’s world economic report

2017-01-20
english.gov.cn/China Business Network

China regained its top spot in world economic growth, with 6.7 percent in 2016, compared with India’s 6.6 percent, according to a report released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Jan 16.

The report, World Economic Outlook, said that India’s growth speed in 2015 was 7.6 percent, the largest growth rate in the world, but that number decreased last year.

It also expected China’s growth in 2017 to be 6.5 percent, as the country is still a main driving engine for the world’s economy, and a main force for global economic recovery in the next year, said Maury Obstfeld, IMF’s chief economist.

Data from the International Monetary Fund also showed that China contributed 1.2 percentage points to the global economy in 2016, while the United States contributed 0.3 percentage points and Europe 0.2 percentage points, the website of German radio station Deutschlandradio reported.

Actually, it has been generally recognized that China has been the world’s most powerful engine, and as the German radio station said, if China stops growing, the global economy would become sluggish.

Data also showed that during China’s 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015), the country’s contribution to the world’s growth was 30.5 percent, the largest in the world, and the rate in 2016 was 33.2 percent.

Most important, China’s current growth was achieved amid its economic supply-side structural reform, which means that policies such as innovative macro management, simplifying administrations, innovation-driven strategy, and mass entrepreneurship and innovation released by the government achieved results, and the transformation of old and new engines was also speeding up in the country.

The good expectations and assessment from international organizations and global views came from China’s own development, which also in turn pushed economic development for China.