Economists upbeat on China

Against the backdrop of a "surprisingly weak" global economy in the first half of 2014, economists on the first day of the eighth Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin struck a relatively upbeat note on China, saying new engines of growth and structural reforms promise to put the economy on a more sustainable path.

The global economy has achieved a "moderate recovery", but the pace of expansion in the first half of this year has been "surprisingly weak", Zhu Min, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said at the start of a panel discussion on Wednesday.

"Emerging markets have passed through the heights of the past economic cycle. Ninety percent of emerging economies experienced a deceleration in the past 18 months," he said.