IMF deputy chief assesses China's growth, reform list

BEIJING - The Chinese economy is growing steadily, but there is a long list of economic and financial reforms to be completed without delay, a senior official with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said.

Stable growth

The Chinese economy continues to grow at a "healthy rate," and the IMF predicts that it will expand by around 7.5 percent in 2014 from the previous year, David Lipton, first deputy managing director of the Washington-based organization, said on Thursday in Beijing.

Risk control crucial to growth

Time to focus on growth quality, IMF says

The latest growth rate projection was in line with the estimate in the IMF's flagship World Economic Outlook report released in April.

"China needs good growth," Lipton said during an exclusive interview with Xinhua, adding that China should aim for fast but sustainable growth.

Growth quality is key to the world's second-largest economy, and the market doesn't need to worry about a temporary growth slowdown in China, he said on the sidelines of the IMF's 2014 Article IV Consultation with China.

The Article IV Consultation is an annual economic and financial check-up held between the IMF and its member countries.

Reform list 

The Chinese authorities have done "many good things" and taken the "right kinds of steps" on economic and financial reforms including curbing the rise of shadow banking, coping with financial sector risk, slowing the spike of total social financing (TSF), and managing local government financing vehicles, according to Lipton.

The aggregate of China's TSF, a broad measure of liquidity in the economy, declined to 7.18 trillion yuan ($1.16 trillion) in the first four months of 2014, 746.4 billion yuan less than the same period last year, Chinese official figures showed.