World Bank forecasts soft landing for China

The World Bank has defied many commentators by forecasting China is heading for a soft landing, with growth in excess of 8% next year.

According to the Bank's semi-annual report, most Asian nations have the fiscal scope to cushion their economies from a deterioration in Europe's sovereign debt crisis. It forecasts Chinese GDP growth will rise to a sustained level of 8.4% in 2013, despite fears over the risk of a correction in the real estate market. "Imports into China are holding up quite nicely and it is becoming increasingly a market for consumption goods of manufacturing countries in the region," Bert Hofman, the World Bank's chief economist for the East Asia and Pacific region told Bloomberg. However, it said...