China to maintain stable economic growth with reforms in place: Russian experts

MOSCOW - China will be able to maintain stable and sustainable economic growth with economic structural and growth model reforms in place, Russian experts said in recent interviews with Xinhua.

"I think the Chinese economy will be able to maintain a medium-to-high growth rate of 6.5-6.7 percent," said Andrei Ostrovsky, deputy director of the Far East Research Institute of Russia's Science Academy.

He said that given the current huge size of the Chinese economy, each percentage of the GDP increase may be achieved by much greater efforts.

Ostrovsky said that China's foreign trade has slumped in a recent period of time, "but I do not think that this was a major blow to China," noting that it occurred within the context of a worsening global economic situation.

He said that in a bid to promote trade development, China will continue to push forward the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt, which will help boost its economic exchange with countries in Central Asia and East Europe.

In light of stability of the Chinese currency, Ostrovsky said that he doesn't see any reason for China to devalue the yuan.

This was echoed by Yakov Berger, senior researcher with the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who said that during the financial crisis in 1998, there were fears that China would devalue the yuan, which would be the prelude to a collapse of Asian currencies in a cascade.

"But nothing like that happened, and China has fulfilled its responsibility to the world, especially to the Asian countries, by preventing the yuan from depreciation," he said.

Berger said that trust can be given to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, who stated at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference on Thursday that there's no foundation for a long-term decline in the value of the yuan. "China will be able to do it," he added.

Berger said that despite the difficulty, it is possible for China to maintain a growth rate of 6.5 percent. "China should carry out reforms and ensure sustainable growth not only in the short term, but also in the long term," he noted.