China's economic growth remains solid: World Bank

LONDON — Growth in China remained solid throughout 2017 and its growth slowdown was well managed, the World Bank (WB) said on Tuesday.

China's trade flows recovered markedly in 2017, with tighter enforcement of capital flow management which "helped ease capital outflows and exchange rate pressures and reverse a reduction in foreign reserves," WB said in its report "Global Economic Prospects" published Tuesday evening.

In the latest report, the bank forecast China's annual economic growth in 2017 at 6.8 percent, a two-basis point increase on its forecast six months ago.

"Currently the growth slowdown in China is very well managed. It is very steady and gradual and the authorities have managed to calibrate it properly," Franziska Lieselotte Ohnsorge, manager of development prospects group at WB, told Xinhua on Tuesday afternoon.

"Reserves are high, government debt is manageable especially compared with advanced economies," said Ohnsorge, who is one of the lead authors of the report of the bank which is headquartered in Washington D.C.

Threats to economic stability are being tackled, said Ohnsorge. "The authorities have already taken a lot of regulatory steps to cool housing markets, to slowly unwind financial vulnerabilities."

"We see the same risk as in other emerging markets, slower than expected growth," she added.

"But the authorities still have ample buffers to absorb or to mitigate any big shock," she noted.

Ohnsorge forecasts that annual GDP growth in China would be between 6 and 6.5 percent over the next decade.