Workers check the steel tanks used to produce a special type of tanker in Tianming Special VehicleManufacturing Company, which mainly exports to the Middle East, South America and Africa, inTuowang Port Industry Zone in Lianyungang, east China's Jiangsu province in June. The competitivemanufacturing industry remains a pillar of the Chinese economy. [Photo/China Daily]

　　Despite adjusting its structure, it is still a driver for the world

　　China's economic growth has slowed in recent years, but its contribution to the world economyremains significantly more than that of other countries', which signifies the vital role it has playedin maintaining global economic vitality, say analysts.

　　China's GDP growth was 6.9 percent in 2015, the slowest in 25 years. In the first half of 2016, itregistered an even lower GDP growth of 6.7 percent, and the International Monetary Fundforecast in July that China's GDP growth this year could be 6.6 percent, triggering concerns thatthe country might be caught in the low-rate growth trap for some time.

　　Relative to other countries, especially the developed ones, however, China's growth is quiteimpressive and it has continued to make a significant contribution to global growth. In the 1980sand early 1990s, emerging market economies started playing a larger role in global growth,contributing about 25 percent to world economic growth. From the late 1990s until now,emerging-market economies have contributed about 70 percent to global economic growth, withChina's contribution estimated at about 30 percent, says Wang Guangqian, president of theCentral University of Finance and Economics.

　　Although estimates vary, researchers generally agree China's contribution to global economicgrowth in recent years ranges from 25 percent to 40 percent. From 2011 to 2015, China'saverage GDP growth was 7.3 percent while the global average was only 2.4 percent, with theUnited States, Japan and Germany registering 2.4 percent, minus 0.1 percent and 1.6 percentgrowth, says Wan Xiangyu, a researcher at the Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economicsof the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. During that period, he says, China contributed 25percent to global GDP growth.

　　In 2014 alone, China contributed 27.8 percent to global growth, making it the top contributor thatyear, says Ding Yifan, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council,China's Cabinet. In 2015, China contributed about 33 percent to global growth, the IMF said in areport in August.

　　Although China's economic growth rate has slowed, given its fast expansion of overall scale, theChinese economy's contribution to global growth has become even more significant.

　　China has achieved such a growth against the backdrop of the fragile global economic recoveryand domestic economic restructuring.

　　The low global growth has affected the demand for China's exports, one of the traditional growthengines for the Chinese economy, analysts say. It has also affected the flow of capital into thecountry.

　　On the domestic front, China has been unswervingly pushing forward economic restructuring torebalance its economy and make its growth more sustainable. Such a drive is set to affect itsgrowth, say analysts.

　　Moreover, China's growth used to benefit enormously from the so-called dividends ofglobalization, economic reform, demographics and industrialization, but those factors no longerfacilitate its growth, says Liu Yuanchun, researcher of the Renmin University of China.

　　China's demographic structure, for example, has changed, with the number of young working-agepeople starting to decline. "China's trade surplus will also decrease gradually," Liu says.

　　Despite these adversities, China has continued to provide solid support for global growth. Forexample, it invested $118 billion overseas in non-financial fields in 2015, up by 14.7 percentyear-on-year, benefiting the economies of destination countries. "China's outbound investmenthas created some miracles," says Ding.

　　For instance, in the 1990s, when China did not make any large-scale investment in Africa, thecontinent was a forgotten land and didn't attract much overseas investments. Entering the 21stcentury, China started investing in the continent and now it has become a powerful globalpowerhouse, Ding says. "All this has much to do with China's large-scale investment in thecontinent."