MNI POLICY: China GDP Should Grow 3% In 2020: Beijing Advisor

China should set a GDP growth target of around 3% for this year and leave enough policy room for the future as the pandemic still offers great uncertainty before a vaccine is successfully developed, according to Justin Yifu Lin, a prominent economic policy advisor and former chief economist at World Bank.

Employment growth and economic growth are highly correlated, and growth of 3% can help the government meet its goal of poverty alleviation, Lin said in a speech on Friday, adding that China's potential economic growth rate is 8%, Beijing News reports.

When pushing to meet the growth rate of 3% -- which would mean GDP growth at 7.6% in H2 -- the Chinese government needs to step up payments to low-income families, lower taxes and fees for corporations, and delay companies' social securities' payments rather than simply relying on infrastructure investment, Lin said who is honorary dean of National School of Development of Peking University.

Lin also predicted that China's economy still has the potential to grow at 5%-6% in the next ten years, putting the country on track to become a high-income country in 2025, with GDP per capita more than USD12,700, and to surpass the GDP of the U.S. in 2030.