China to help drive world GDP expansion

BEIJNG - Despite registering a slowdown, China's growth will play an increasingly important role in the global economy, as forecasts suggest the world is on the verge of another major downturn in 2012, according to experts.

A report by the United Nations, released on Tuesday, put the outlook for global economic growth at 2.6 percent this year and 3.2 percent for 2013, as compared with 2.8 percent seen in 2011.

However, the forecast is conditional on containment of the eurozone debt crisis and a halt to further moves toward stringent fiscal austerity in the developed countries.

"In an alternative scenario, if the policymakers in Europe and the United States fail to address job crises and sovereign debt distress, growth would decelerate to 0.5 percent in 2012," the report said.

Developing economies will continue to stoke the world's economic engine, but the growth rate in 2012 and 2013 will be well below those of the previous two years, it said.

The UN report gave China's economic growth a positive forecast of 8.7 percent for this year.

The country's key 2011 economic figures, released on Tuesday, show that fourth-quarter GDP growth slowed to 8.9 percent from 9.1 percent in the previous quarter.

The figure was the slowest rate of growth since the second quarter of 2009, but was still slightly stronger than the prediction of 8.7 percent made by a number of analysts.