Top economist says country must address environmental, ageing issues

One of Britain's leading economists says Chinese consumers will be the driving force of future global economic growth.

Jim O'Neill, chair of the international think tank Chatham House and former chief economist at Goldman Sachs, made the remarks in a speech on Wednesday at the Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China& the 2nd China-UK Economic and Trade Forum, in London.

"What happens to the Chinese consumer is more important to China's future," he said. "If China continues with 8 percent nominal GDP growth, which I believe 5 percent real (GDP growth), and 3 percent prices (meaning inflation), and if the Chinese consumers become the 50 percent of that total, the change from the next year to the next decade is somewhere between $11 to $12 trillion, which is equivalent to create another China," he said.

O'Neill is a former British commercial secretary to the Treasury.He said the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, initiated six years ago, will play a "hugely important" role in global trade, which has been buffeted by rising protectionism and unilateralism.

The BRI aims to build the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and deliver policies, infrastructure, trade, financial and people-to-people connectivity via a new platform for a brighter future.

"If it can be implemented collectively, it can transform the trade pattern in Asia, particularly between China and India, two of the major BRIC countries," he added.

O'Neill is well known for coining the term BRIC, the group term for Brazil, Russia, India and China, in 2001, to describe the four rapidly-developing nations that symbolized the shifting balance in the global economy. South Africa was added to the group nine years later, making it BRICS.

"China remains the only one of the BRIC countries that after 17 years has actually done exactly what we had expected it would achieve," he said.

His opinion is that the on-going trade dispute with the United States is not the most important challenge the country currently faces. To continue its success, O'Neill said, China needs to address the aspects of ageing population, which is a key contributor to the essential economic slow-down, and tackle environmental issues and population control in urban areas.

WANG MINGJIE in London

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