China's economic reforms to spur global growth: Mexican expert

MEXICO CITY - Reforms put in motion by China are aimed to spur both domestic and global economic growth, according to a leading Mexican political observer.

Armando Azua Garcia, a scholar at the Asian Studies Center at the Iberoamerican University, believes that while the reforms are designed to reduce China's dependence on international markets, they take into account the positive effects a robust Chinese economy would have on the rest of the world.

China's goal "is to not be solely dependent on the major world markets, which of course it is not going to abandon, but on the contrary, it is going to strengthen them," Azua told Xinhua in an interview.

"But it also wants to strengthen its domestic market through greater economic incentives," said Azua.

On Sunday, at the opening of the annual meeting of China's top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), Premier Li Keqiang said China will continue to move forward with the reforms to meet the growth target of 6.5 percent this year under challenging global circumstances.

Besides working to transform the economy from an export-driven model to one fueled by domestic consumption, China "will now also strive to improve the environment for foreign investors," said Azua.

In addition, China "will seek to strengthen the large public sector by delegating tasks that it believes can be done much more efficiently by privately-owned small- and medium-sized companies," said Azua.

Such private investment "can spur development in regions that have yet to see development, and in the long run that could generate large productive chains inside China," he added.

Expanding private investment is in accordance with China's policy of scaling back government involvement in the economy, except for those strategic sectors, he noted.

China has opened up higher education to private investment. At the university level, private capital can help bring academia and industrial development closer for the good of innovation, said Azua.

Similarly, the government has announced it will allow foreign companies to take part in state-sponsored scientific and technological projects.

"China's great advantage would lie in the return of highly-trained scientists and engineers who are in contact with US or European colleagues, and then sharing their experiences with the large corporations and Chinese companies," said Azua.