China plays central role in global economic growth: Israeli expert

JERUSALEM — China is a "very influential" economic force on the major trends of the global economy and plays a "very central" role in the global economic growth, said a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), an Israeli think-tank.

As one of the biggest economies around the world, China contributes to the global economic growth very effectively and China's investment in other economies generates their economic activities, said Oded Eran, former director of the INSS, in an interview with Xinhua.

Eran cited the cooperation between Israel and China as an example, saying that China's participation in the construction of the Israeli infrastructure sector is important to the Israeli economy and Chinese investment in Israeli companies, especially start-ups and high tech, is "vital and essential."

Chinese companies not only participate in the infrastructure sector efficiently, but also save more cost than other companies, Eran told Xinhua.

As for the transformation of China's economic development mode, Eran believed that China has done it in a right direction and has identified the innovation trend of the future rightly, because the world is moving toward artificial intelligence, 5G communications, etc.

"The flagship of the Israeli and Chinese cooperation is innovation," he said, adding that "there are many issues related to future trends that Israel and China can cooperate on."

China and Israel established innovative comprehensive partnership in March 2017. Since then, the China-Israel ties in the hi-tech field have improved significantly.

China has a population of around 1.4 billion. "This is a major factor and no economy in the world can ignore this basic figure," said the former ambassador.

"This is the dream of every producer in the world being able to have access to this market, and this is a major factor in the global economy," said Eran, adding that "this is also one major element in the economic power of China."

China has today the largest amount of foreign currency reserves, which it can and is willing to invest in other countries, which also makes China a very important economic global player, according to Eran.