HONG KONG -- China's better-than-expected economic performance in the first half of this year, together with Beijing's repetitive pledges to push through economic reforms, have helped to ease concerns about the country's future among some economists. However, others are still far from convinced -- especially those who closely watched Japan's bubble economy that started in the late 1980s.
Speaking immediately after a press conference held in Hong Kong on Monday, Bank of Singapore's chief economist Richard Jerram said that China was suffering from "a delusion" about how to fix its economic problems. Instead of pushing reforms to transform its economy to consumption-based growth, he expected that the nation would continue to rely on a government policy-supported growth model with credit continually expanding at "whatever number necessary to maintain the acceptable [economic] growth rate at 6-7%."
