Growth warning

China's so-called "Dream Team" finally took office last week, with Li Keqiang taking the second job to President Xi Jinping as premier and economic supremo.

As far as the world is concerned, China has raced from strength to strength with unprecedented real growth rates never seen before in the world, not for one year or one decade but for 30 years.

It now stands on the brink of surpassing the United States as the world's biggest economy, and growth is still ticking ahead at 7.5 to 8 per cent, while developed countries are languishing, barely able to record positive growth and crippled with heavy debts.

So the Dream Team should be able to dream about a great future for China. However, Xi and Li were warned last week by a leading Chinese international political economist that the way the country is growing, the dream economic growth could easily turn into nightmares.

Zhu Min, a deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, called on China to create jobs and boost wages in an effort to raise consumption and move away from its unhealthily high levels of investment.

He warned that the heralded headline growth figures could be misleading and China needed to look at the quality of its growth, not just the quantity.