STORY: China has capacity to sustain rapid growth: Financial Times economics commentator
DATELINE: Oct. 2, 2023
LENGTH: 00:03:02
LOCATION: London
CATEGORY: ECONOMY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of street views in China
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (English): MARTIN WOLF, Chief economics commentator at Financial Times
3. SOUNDBITE 2 (English): MARTIN WOLF, Chief economics commentator at Financial Times
4. various of street views in China

STORYLINE:

Renowned British expert on global economics Martin Wolf has told Xinhua that China has the potential and the capacity to continue to grow rapidly and double its GDP per capita relative to most advanced countries over the next generation.

SOUNDBITE 1 (English): MARTIN WOLF, Chief economics commentator at Financial Times
"The potential to grow rapidly to a higher level clearly must exist.
I'm talking about doubling over maybe a generation, maybe less, 20 to 30 years or so, not tomorrow, but continuing to catch up.
Now, what makes this plausible in China's case is what it's achieved already so far. My back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest GDP per head has doubled four times in the last 40 years. So another doubling doesn't seem such a revolutionary step.
China has clearly got the resources to do this with. It has a very high investment rate. It has an increasingly well-educated population. And it has some very strong competitive advantage in some very important dynamic sectors of the world economy, such as information technology, and motor vehicles and so forth, the green economy more broadly. So for all these reasons, China has the potential and the capacity to continue to grow rapidly and quite conceivably to double GDP per head relative to the most advanced countries over the next generation."

Wolf said if China's GDP per head doubles in the next generation, it would become the world's biggest economy.

SOUNDBITE 2 (English): MARTIN WOLF, Chief economics commentator at Financial Times
"China's record in the last 40 years is really without parallel in world history, modern world history, which is the first time this was even conceivable. Its economic development is completely unparalleled, particularly when you think of its staggering size.
I would say that if China's GDP per head doubles in the next generation, China would then be the largest economy in the world. If the potential I've described, which I'm sure exists, is actually exploited, which is a big if, then China will become the biggest economy in the world for the foreseeable future.
If you look at the size of China, the relative size of China, and look at the capacity of the Chinese people, it doesn't seem to me rational to think with any strong conviction that it won't become the biggest economy in the world."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from London.
(XHTV)