China expected to continue contributing over 30% to global growth in 2024: economist

(ECNS) -- Global economic growth is projected to decrease to 2.7 percent, and if China maintains a growth rate of 5 percent, it is expected to continue contributing over 30 percent to global growth, thereby driving global demand, said Zhu Min, vice chairman of China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE) and former deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on Wednesday.

Zhu said at a book launch that 2024 will be a year of mediocrity for the global economy and financial risks would accumulate, with the greatest coming from politics. However, he expressed optimism about the future under the technological wave represented by large models like GPT.

Zhu specifically pointed out that the primary technological focus in 2024 is the capitalization of data. In the second half of 2023, the Chinese Ministry of Finance introduced provisions on enterprise data resources, allowing data to be recognized as assets on the balance sheet, which is a fundamental change.

Speaking about China's contribution to global economic recovery, Zhu said that in 2023, its economic growth rate hit 5.2 percent, significantly higher than the global economic growth of around 3 percent. The expected contribution to global growth is anticipated to exceed 30 percent, which he described as "significant." In 2024, the momentum is expected to continue.

In 2023, China's total retail sales of consumer goods amounted to 47.1495 trillion Chinese yuan(about $6.58 trillion), showing a growth of 7.2 percent compared to the previous year. Zhu Min emphasized that the enhancement of domestic consumption in China has a significant impact on the world.

Additionally, in the new year, China plans to increase investments in technology and green infrastructure, constructing more digital centers, blockchain infrastructure, 5G facilities, and supporting global dataization. This is expected to be a major driving force for China's contribution to the global economy, he said.