China’s economic growth is forecast to slow from an estimated 6.6% this year to 6.3% in 2019 as trade issues and a slowdown in demand take a larger toll on the economy, according to economists from Renmin University in Beijing.
The survey, published by the China Academy of Social Sciences over the weekend, correspond with the results of a Reuters poll taken last month to gauge anticipated fallout from the US-China trade war.
In addition to trade tensions with Washington, the economists at Renmin listed the global trade environment, falling export growth and currency depreciation among China’s major incoming headwinds.
They added that short-term policy adjustments to soften the slowdown will not be enough to tackle China’s broader structural problems, and that supply-side reforms were needed. Savings rate and domestic consumption were now the key factors of China economic development, said Liu Yuanchun, dean of the university’s School of Economics.