2016年CRI China's economic role sparks discussions among international officials, scholars

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In a recent interview, International Monetary¹ Fund Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, expressed her confidence in China's reforms and economic growth.

"As opposed to many other countries which we had to downgrade in terms of growth forecast, we upgraded China, which clearly is delivering in the short term. In the medium term, those reforms – supply side reforms, governance issues, all of that has to be developed, rolled out, implemented², so that the medium term outlook for China is favorable."

The IMF approved the inclusion of the Chinese Renminbi into its Special Drawing Rights basket as a fifth currency, along with the US dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen³ and the British pound. The new SDR basket will formally go into effect from October this year.

Lagarde said it would mark a milestone⁴ in the internationalization of the Renminbi and reflect China's increasingly important role in global trade and economy.

"In and of itself, it's a great achievement because it has been a process by which progress has been made in terms of opening up the economy, structuring and better organizing the markets. Now that the Renminbi will be in the basket, it's clearly going to bring another large, international currency – the Renminbi, -- into a very exclusive group of those currencies that are considered as international currencies. And I'm sure that's only the beginning of a journey where more transactions, more issuance of bonds will be issued in as the SDR. The SDR will be more meaningful because it will include the currency of a very, very large economic player – China."

The IMF said earlier this month that China's near-term economic outlook is positive, upgrading the expected growth rate for China 6.5 percent to 6.6 percent this year.

In addition to the IMF chief, British scholar John Ryan also has high expectations on China's economic role and the China-UK relations in terms of politics, trade, economy and security. Underlining the event's importance, Britain's new Prime Minister Theresa May has confirmed her attendance at the G20 Summit, which will be her debut⁵ at a major international conference since taking office.

In addition, Spanish professor Heinz Dieterich has also expressed his confidence, and said that he looks forward to China taking the lead in establishing a new order in the international economy.

With a theme of "Toward an innovative⁶, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive world economy," this year's G20 Summit will be held on September 4th and 5th in east China's city of Hangzhou. 

"Inclusive and interconnected development" is expected to be one of the key priorities to be discussed at the summit.

Issues such as employment and inclusive business, care for women, promoting innovation, and sustainable development in agriculture are also going to be discussed.

For CRI, I'm Huang Yue.