After averaging more than 9% a year in GDP growth since beginning its economic reforms in the late 1970s, China's economy is not in danger of overheating and will be able to sustain an annual growth of 8% through the next decade, state media reported, citing Yu Yongding, head of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of World Economics and Politics and a central bank policy committee member. Yu said at a seminar in Seoul that "it is hard to say the Chinese economy is overheated across the board".