World Bank revises China GDP forecast upward

The World Bank revised up its projection of China's GDP to expand by 8.5 percent year-on-year in 2021, compared with a forecast of 8.1 percent in April, according to a research report published on Wednesday.

While China's economy is projected to grow faster than expected, most other countries in the East Asia and Pacific region may face slower growth along with a decline of employment rates and labor force participation, economists from the World Bank said at an online media conference.

The World Bank predicted in the East Asia and Pacific Fall 2021 Economic Update report economic growth in the whole region will be 7.5 percent this year, up from April's forecast of 7.4 percent. But excluding China, GDP growth for the rest of the region is projected to be at 2.5 percent, about 2 percentage points slower compared to April's update.

As the recent economic recovery of EAP countries is uneven, countries in the region should take measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic as well as strengthen macro-financial supports, said Aaditya Mattoo, chief economist of the EAP Region of the World Bank.

Internationally, countries can coordinate fiscal stimulus and deepen cooperation on taxation to enable domestic revenue mobilization in the face of mobile capital, and domestically, countries can introduce or re-introduce fiscal rules as a commitment to limiting future deficits and debt, according to Mattoo.

Many EAP countries can use monetary policy to support economic recovery in the near-term but must remain alert to the risk of abrupt global financial tightening, he added.