(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-15 12:16

The World Bank's (WB) forecast for China's 2007 growth remains unchanged at 11.3 percent, and it predicted a more than 8 percent economic growth for East Asia despite growing concerns about the US sub-prime crisis and rising oil prices.

In the latest six-monthly report on the economic and social health of the East Asia and Pacific region, the WB said although East Asian exports to the US have slowed, more buoyant investment and consumption in China and other countries has allowed growth to remain strong and even pick up this year.

China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 11.5 percent in the first three quarters of 2007 from the same period last year.

A new acceleration in investment spending provided the main impulse for the rise in China's GDP growth in 2007, reflecting fundamental factors such as rapid profit growth, rising profit margins and still relatively low lending rates, said the report.

The report cautioned that new highs for oil prices will test the solidity of the East Asian and global economic expansions in 2008, saying that an average per barrel oil price of US$90 in 2008 would be associated with an income loss in East Asia of a little over one percent of GDP.

Crude oil prices have neared the US$100 per barrel mark in early November, underpinned by demand and supply factors and boosted by short-term factors such as geo-political and financial ones.