China reported growth of 8.7 percent in 2009 and is now on course to overtake Japan as the world’s second-largest economy behind the US. Official gave credit to the government’s economic stimulus plan for helping China manage the financial crisis.
Jim O’Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, noted in a BBC Radio interview that in “November 2008, they [the Chinese government] came up with a quick, aggressive fiscal and monetary response which has worked. They have replaced exports with domestic demand, both consumption and investment… China has become more important as America [has become] less, which is what the world needs.”
