China's growth to slow to 6.3% next year

This article is more than 12 months old

Nov 26, 2018 06:00 am

SHANGHAI: China's economic growth is expected to hit 6.6 per cent this year and slow to 6.3 per cent next year as the country struggles with challenges relating to trade and structural reform, economists from Beijing's Renmin University said in a report.

The predictions, published by the news service of the China Academy of Social Sciences late on Saturday, are in line with the median forecast in a poll of 73 economists by Reuters last month, with China under increasing pressure from a trade war with the US.

But the economists with Renmin University's School of Economics warned that China would still face difficulties even if trade tensions with the US were resolved, with the country facing a deteriorating global trade environment, falling export growth and currency depreciation.

China's gross domestic product grew 6.5 per cent year-on-year in the September quarter, its slowest quarter of growth since 2009, and Beijing has tried to encourage commercial banks to boost lending to private firms and take action to ease company financing problems.

The economists said it would be difficult to use short-term measures to alleviate downward economic pressures now building in China, and while recent policies should prevent a deeper decline in growth next year, a new round of structural supply-side reforms was needed. - REUTERS