China to drive growth in Asia-Pacific: observer

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- China was considered as the best opportunity for growth in the Asia-Pacific region, an APEC observer, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, said here Wednesday.

Based on a survey conducted from June 12 to 16 on 537 opinion-leaders, emerging markets, especially China, are believed to be a drive of regional and global economy over the next five years, said PECC Secretary General Eduardo Pedrosa.

"Seventy-five percent of respondents picked China as number one opportunity for growth for the entire region, followed by Indonesia and India," Pedrosa said, citing figures from a PECC annual report.

Meanwhile, around 50 percent of respondents considered the economic slowdown in China as a risk to the regional growth, Pedrosa said.

In March, China pared its GDP growth target to 7.5 percent for 2012 from more than 8 percent achieved in the past seven years, underlining its intent to make more room for growth mode transformation.

"However, there are two things about that, there are concerns from what we read in China, but it also reflects the importance of China in the regional economy," Pedrosa said, stressing China's economic growth was still the fastest in the region.

"We're talking about the slower growth in China, but we are also talking about some 8 percent of growth, which is the fastest in the region," he stressed.

The secretary general also suggested that economics in the region should make more efforts in integration to spur growth.

PECC, founded in 1980, is a non-profit international organization committed to the promotion of cooperation and dialogue in the Asia-Pacific region. As the only non-governmental official observer of APEC, PECC provides independent report "State of the Region" on major regional developments annually.

An APEC gathering is under way in Russia's Far-Eastern city of Vladivostok.