China capable of overcoming economic challenges: Russian economist

MOSCOW - China has considerable resources and sufficient strength to overcome current economic challenges and to achieve stable economic growth, a leading Russian economist has said.

"I believe that China will continue to pursue balanced and wise macroeconomic policies, which will help maintain stability and sustainable growth with certain changes in economic development priorities," Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and co-CEO of the Russia-China Investment Fund, said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

The Chinese government has set the GDP target growth at a range of 6.5 percent to 7 percent for this year.

The target is aligned with China's goal of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and takes into consideration the need to advance structural reform, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said earlier this month at the fourth annual session of the 12th National People's Congress.

China has managed to maintain high rates of economic growth, including during the 2008 global financial crisis and in 1997, the expert said.

"We must pay tribute to the professionalism of the Chinese government, due to which the country was able to maintain a high degree of social stability at the time," Dmitriev said.

He said that China has been actively developing in the last 15 to 20 years, and it has managed to achieve significant diversification of the economy in terms of both production and consumption, as well as to form a broad middle class.

The Chinese authorities have been consistently liberalizing the national economy, including foreign exchange and money markets, which has made China's economy more independent, and allowed it to react to changes using market tools and to adapt to new challenges autonomously, Dmitriev said.

The current degree of economic freedom allows the Chinese government to take necessary decisions more quickly and to respond to various challenges that arise in the process of economic development, he said.

"Therefore, there is every reason to believe that the strategic vision, hard work and the ability to adapt to changes in the external environment will enable the leadership and people of China to successfully overcome potential challenges on the way to reaching the planned goals," the expert said.