World Bank report: China boosts Asian growth

A recently released World Bank report concludes that East Asian economies are rebounding from the global financial crisis, but warns that the upturn is being driven almost entirely by China.

The World Bank raised its 2009 growth forecast for China from 7.2 percent to 8.4 percent. Meanwhile it warned that China can no longer count on exports and investment to drive growth, but needed to encourage its own consumers to spend more.

The strength of China's rebound led the World Bank to increase its growth forecast for developing East Asia by 1.3 percentage points, to 6.7 percent.

Ivailo Izvorski, Principal Author of East Asia & Pacific Update, said, "The rest of East Asia and the Pacific, excluding China, is projected to grow only by about one percent, a pace that is slower than the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, notably India, and sub-Saharan Africa."