China should step up RMB internationalization: Jim O'Neill

He pointed out the biggest risk facing China is that Chinese consumers do not tart to spend more, which is also the problem in the rest of the world.

Another risk listed by O'Neill is the weak exports.

"The reasons for China's lower growth rate were structural and cyclical in nature. It was a planned downturn, mainly due to concerns about overheating and inflation. During the last quarter China already did better again, coming out of its trough," O'Neill noted.

O'Neill admitted that the rapid development of the BRIC countries have exceeded his expectations.

"The BRIC countries have the potential to avert a global recession and to grow faster than the rest of the world and to pull all of us along with them as a (growth) engine," he said.

When asked about his next job after Goldman Sachs, the 55-year-old economist used his sense of humor and said: "If the sun's continuing shinning, my next plan is to go sun bathing and do nothing else."

But he disclosed that he would do something else late this year.

In another interview with local media, O'Neill was suggest to start a second career as secretary general of the BRICS countries.

O'Neill said this proposal is one of the more interesting ones among a few offers he received recently. "I don't know whether the heads of the BRICS countries want to create such a post," he said.

O'Neill became well-known in 2001 for a paper in which he was the first to coin the acronomyn BRIC, for the rapidly developing nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which he predicted would be the great economic powers of the future. More recently, South Africa has also been frequently named as belonging to this circle.