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Global downturn dragging growth

A global economic downturn is the main reason behind China's slowdown in growth, rather than domestic issues, said Justin Yifu Lin, former chief economist of the World Bank. The continued slowdown in China's economic growth is more the result of external and cyclical factors, he said at a forum held by Peking University on Sunday. China's GDP grew 6.7 percent in the first three quarters of 2016, steady with the first half and within the government's target range of between 6.5 and 7 percent for 2016. In 2015, China's economy recorded the slowest annual expansion in a quarter of a century by growing 6.9 percent year-on-year.