McKinsey China chairman: The next China is China

"The next China is China." This statement from Joe Ngai, chairman of McKinsey China, has sparked a heated discussion in the business community about global growth trends and China's economic prospects.

In a recent interview with China Daily, Ngai said: "If you want to look for the next China, if you want to look for growth, growth is right here. It is in China."

According to a projection by the McKinsey Global Institute, if China's GDP annual growth rate maintains at 2 percent in the next decade, the cumulative growth total will be equivalent to India's current GDP. If China's GDP annual growth rate can reach 5 percent, the cumulative growth in total will be approximately equal to the current GDP of India, Japan and Indonesia combined.

"Where do we get the confidence? We have the confidence because the macro (fundamentals) have not changed. Why do we invest in China? We invest in China because there's a growing middle class, there's a transition towards services, even consumption is going towards more quality consumption as we have seen," Ngai said.

"I do think that in the next ten years, if you are a global CEO looking at the world and thinking about where to find growth, you cannot ignore China," he added.

The China head of the global consulting firm said that the most important factor for the Chinese economy is confidence.

"And I do think that is a basic foundation of everything that we see. When you go to China, and you see the younger generation, every single person believes that in ten years' time, in twenty years' time, in thirty years' time, they will be much better off than the previous generation," he said.

"That's what causes people to spend money, causes people to think about working harder, think about how to get a better education. And frankly, if you look around the world today, there are many mature economies where you don't see that confidence. And I think that confidence is the ultimate bedrock of everything that has to do with the growth in China," he said.

When talking about his understanding of the Chinese path to modernization, Ngai believes that innovation and technology are the keys to future development and China's modernization.

"The unique path for China is that we can actually leapfrog even faster. There are many examples of this in the past ten years. I think the most famous example is payments where we almost entirely skipped over the whole credit cards and checking accounts and all that directly to digital payments," Ngai said.

"Our consumers are a lot more willing to try new things. Our companies are a lot more willing to completely change themselves and transform. When I look at Chinese companies, the one thing that stands out is their courage, to say, here's the future and I'm going to bet the entire company on the future," he added.