WASHINGTON - A group of leading US economists from the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) will head to China for an economic symposium later this month, the PIIE director said here Tuesday.

The group consists of renowned economists such as Nicholas Lardy, Arvind Subramanian, Joseph Gagnon, Carmen Reinhart, William Cline and Jacob Kirkegaard, C. Fred Bergsten told the press.

The two-day symposium, co-sponsored by the PIIE and China Finance 40 Forum (CF40), is scheduled to kick off on April 27 in Beijing, said Bergsten.

This is the first time for the PIIE, a private, nonprofit research institution devoted to the study of international economic policies since founded in 1981, to send a big group of economists to visit China.

Bergsten added the US economists were keenly interested in the fantastic Chinese economic performance in the past three decades and would avail themselves of the opportunity to discuss with Chinese experts a broad range of topics, including the US fiscal challenge, exchange rates, global financial system and China's future economic policies.