China faces fork in the road, IMF chief Georgieva says at CDF forum [Video]

China has two choices right now: return to its old economic policies, or choose reforms to spur growth, according to the International Monetary Fund’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

“China is poised to face a fork in the road — rely on the policies that have worked in the past, or update its policies for a new era of high-quality growth,” Georgieva said Sunday at the China Development Forum in Beijing.

“With a comprehensive package of pro-market reforms, China could grow considerably faster than a status quo scenario,” she said, according to prepared remarks by the IMF.

This could unleash growth that would “amount to a 20% expansion of the real economy over the next 15 years — in today’s terms, that is like adding US$3.5 trillion to the Chinese economy,” she added.

While the country has seen a post-Covid rebound — with growth exceeding 5% in 2023— it faces factors such as low productivity growth and …