Experts ponder risks to growth in 2018, seek ways to duck

BEIJING - While the world economy has seen a broad-based recovery in the past year, Chinese observers are wary that some "black swan" events could dampen growth prospects in 2018. Unique, eye-catching and hard to find, a black swan is as a metaphor to describe rare events with potentially catastrophic ramifications.

"One of the reasons behind economic strength last year was that we hardly saw any black swans," said Zhang Ming, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

A report by the Institute of World Economics and Politics under the CASS predicted that the global economy would expand 3.5 percent in 2018 on purchasing power parity terms.