IMF forecasts China’s growth will slow to 5.5% by 2023

The International Monetary Fund maintained its forecast for China’s annual GDP growth for 2018 at 6.6%, reports the Financial Times. But the fund predicts that this figure will fall to around 5.5% by 2023.

The 6.6% estimate was revised up from 6.5% in January but would still be a 0.3% decline from 2017’s 6.9% – the fastest growth rate the country had seen since 2015.

David Lipton, the IMF’s first deputy managing director, praised China’s welcome change in “policy focus from high-speed to high-quality growth” in the report, referring to President Xi Jinping’s calls to regional governments earlier in the year to sacrifice ambitious growth targets driven by borrowing for more sustainable economic development.