China’s economic growth story will be cut short under Xi Jinping, research firm predicts

China’s growth will slow to 2 per cent by the end of the next decade from 6.9 per cent last year, a London-based research firm has predicted, painting a gloomy picture for the world’s second biggest economy.

Under President Xi Jinping’s leadership, China may be unable to continue its “rapid climb up the economic ladder” in the coming decades to reach a high income status – a key part of Xi’s vision of becoming a “modern socialist country” by 2035 and a “rich and powerful socialist country” by 2050, according to a research note published by Capital Economics on Monday.

“Xi is aiming high ... but the odds aren’t in his favour,” economists Mark Williams and Julian Evans-Pritchard wrote.

Compared with the growth trajectories of other Asian economies Japan, Korea and Taiwan, China’s is facing its own headwinds and structural restraints, including a rapidly ageing population and less friendly trading partners, they said.

Those issues mean China cannot be expected to quickly catch up with the United States in terms of per capita gross domestic product, the economists added.