World Bank raises China growth forecast

The World Bank raised its forecast for China's economic growth this year from 9.6% to 10.4%, indicating the country's GDP expanded 11.1% from a year earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported. The World Bank said Beijing should focus policy on rebalancing the economy, but mentioned that inflationary pressure wasn't an imminent problem, despite the bank's forecast that consumer prices went up 3.2%, up from last year's forecast of 2.5%. The bank also expects the country's exports to rise 20.6% this year, lower than the 23.6% export growth from last year. The projection for China's current-account surplus was also raised to US$340 billion, or 10.8% of GDP, from an 8.3% share of GDP in the previous forecast. The World Bank advocated tightening monetary policy and higher interest rates to address the country's massive trade surplus.