China is becoming engine for world economy

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-10-06 11:19

UNITED NATIONS -- Three decades after the advent of its reforms and opening up, China has become another engine driving the world economy in addition to the United States, UN Under-Secretary-General Sha Zukang has said.

China has enjoyed 30 years of continuous and rapid development, expanding its economic aggregate by nearly 15 times and its foreign trade more than 100 times, a sustained fast growth rare in modern world history, Sha told Xinhua in a recent interview in his office at the UN headquarters in New York.

Measured by gross domestic product, China's economic aggregate now ranks the third in the world. It stands likely to become the largest exporter and the biggest manufacturing powerhouse in 2009, said the under-secretary-general for economic and social affairs.

"China's contributions to world economic growth in the past few years are comparable to that of the United States," Sha said, "It has become yet another engine driving world economic growth."

Its contributions to reducing global poverty have also been there for all to see, he said. Over the past 30 years, about 500 million Chinese people have emerged from abject poverty, meeting the target of halving such population as listed in the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) well ahead of the 2015 deadline.

China, the world's most populous country, has been transformed into a world economic giant, with ever greater influence on world economy, Sha said.

Despite all the progress, he noted that China's per capita income remains well below the world average and far behind the income levels of many developed countries.

As a low-to-medium-income developing economy, China faces a myriad of challenges such as bridging the widening gap between the rich and poor and protecting the environment amid rapid economic growth, he said, stressing that all these are problems in the process of development and can be addressed through further deepening reforms and pushing forward wider opening-up.

The Chinese government has in recent years come up with such concepts as "human-oriented" governance and building a harmonious society, emphasizing the quality of development, rather than simply pursuing faster GDP growth, Sha noted.

These guiding principles, he said, have laid a policy foundation for handling new problems cropping up in the process of development and ensuring sustained growth of China's economy.

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