Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Monday he expected a "long and tortuous process" of world economic recovery, while China's economic growth rate of about 7 percent was "within a reasonable and expected range".
Speaking on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit, Xi said the world economy was in the middle of profound adjustment and with major economies far from resolving their structural problems, it was imperative to strengthen macroeconomic cooperation.
"To achieve a full recovery and healthy growth of the world economy will be a long and tortuous process," Xi said in a speech on the Indonesian island of Bali.
China, the world's second largest economy, is a major engine of global economy and it has become the largest trading partner of many of the 21 nations in the Asia-Pacific including the likes of the United States, Japan and Russia.
APEC, which accounts for 55 percent of global real gross domestic product (GDP) growth, said in a joint statement last week that "risks remain tilted to the downside" and that economic growth would be slower and less balanced than desired.
Xi brushed aside concern of a hard landing for the Chinese economy, however, saying a "seven percent annual growth rate will suffice" to meet China's medium-term goal of doubling per capita income by 2020.
"I'm fully confident in the future of China's economy."
China's GDP grew at 7.6 percent for the first half of 2013, slower than 9.3 percent in 2011 and 7.7 percent last year.
"The slowdown of the Chinese economy is an intended result of our own regulatory initiatives," Xi said, adding that China's fundamentals remained good.
© 2017 Reuters All rights reserved.
