China to Become World Economic Locomotive: Former Italian FM

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, May 28, 2002

China to Become World Economic Locomotive: Former Italian FM

China would become the world's second-largest economic power in 20 years, said former Italian Foreign Minister Gianni de Michelis Monday in Beijing at a symposium on the WTO and China's economy during the week-long Beijing International Hi-tech Expo.

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Former Italian Foreign Minister Gianni de Michelis said Monday in Beijing that China would become the world's second-largest economic power in 20 years.

De Michelis made this comment at a symposium on the World Trade Organization (WTO) and China's economy during the week-long Beijing International Hi-tech Expo.

He said China's entry into the WTO has helped it get into the world economic community and upgraded its involvement with the economic globalization.

De Michelis said that he was amazed that China has become the world's biggest market in terms of telecommunications, and predicted that the number of China's visitors to foreign countries would increase 10-fold in the next 20 years.

Meanwhile, he noted that after its entry into the WTO, China would probably face an energy supply problem, saying that China should attach more importance to it.

De Michelis is adviser to the Italian prime minister on world affairs, and has visited Beijing many times since 1979.

Related News: China Overtakes Italy as World's Sixth Biggest Economy

China has snatched the sixth place from Italy in the table of the world's top economic powers, the Bloomberg news agency reported December 31, 2001.

Over the 12-month period ending in September 2001, Italy's GDP was 1.1 trillion U.S. dollars, Bloomberg said, noting that this was less than the 1.2 trillion dollars cited by China's central statistics office in a press report.

Chinese authorities were quoted in a top national daily as forecasting gross domestic product for 2001 at 9,580 billion yuan (1.2 trillion dollars).

Because the period referred to by Chinese officials (January- December 2001) was different to the statistics for Italy, some doubt remained over whether China had actually overtaken Italy.

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