Economists from both developed and developing countries, including Britain and Brazil, said Tuesday the opening-up and growth of the Chinese economy are having a profound impact on the global economy.

Sir Nicholas Stern, second permanent secretary of the British Treasury, said it is plausible that global gross domestic product (GDP) and trade may both have entered recession in recent years without China's positive contribution to growth.

At a seminar on China and the global economy, Stern, former chief economist and senior vice-president of the World Bank, said as China's economy has increased in size and openness, its influence over the global economy has grown.

In each of the three years preceding 2003, China's contribution to global GDP growth in purchasing power parity (PPP) exceeded that of the entire seven industrialized nations put together, he said.

Brady W. Dougan, CEO of Credit Suisse First Boston,said the company had to revise its forecast for global economic growth rate from 4.1 percent to 4.3 percent this year, mostly due to the increasing role that Asian countries, China in particular, are playing.

Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank who shared a Nobel Prize in Economics with two other economists in 2001, said China's fast growth makes it one of the engines of the global economy, and in the Asian economies particularly.

Castro Neves, Brazilian ambassador to China, said Brazil registered a zero economic growth rate in 2003, but Brazilian economists say the zero growth rate would have been a negative 0.8 percent had Brazil not had a commercial relationship with China.

He said China's reemergence as a big economic player is a positive development to the outside world insofar as it promotes global economic development.

China has set a good example for many developing countries in terms of development, said the ambassador.

Stern and Stiglitz recommended that China move faster on financial reform, promote domestic consumption and eliminate inequality between urban and rural areas, and coastal and interior provincial areas in order to sustain its fast economic growth.

Li Yong, vice-minister of finance of China, said at the seminar that China is willing to work with all countries to address major development challenges faced by the world, and contribute to the stable and equitable development of the global economy.

The seminar was sponsored by the Ministry of Finance and the Credit Suisse First Boston.

Source: Xinhua