China still has considerable room for growth in the coming five years, says former ADB president

China still has considerable room to grow during the next five years, supported by its strong technological progress, industrial upgrading and entrepreneurial dynamism, said Takehiko Nakao, former president of the Asian Development Bank.

Speaking with China Perspective in a recent exclusive interview on the sidelines of the 2025 Bund Summit in Shanghai, Nakao said he was "pleased to see the continued growth of China's economy", which he attributes partly to "strong investment in new areas of technology" under the country's Five-Year Plan framework.

Nakao said China still has far more space to expand. "China's per capita GDP (at purchasing power parity) is still about one-fourth of that of the US," he said. "That means China still has a lot of space to grow because its economy on average is not as large as the US, which is a concept of convergence."

He added that China's "entrepreneurship and the sentiment of the people who want to grow and be rich looks stronger than in Japan", and that its vast pool of talent provides another structural advantage. "China has so many PhDs in engineering and science as well as lots of workers who are highly educated. And R&D expenditure is really strong in China," he said.