No recession for China's economy: Hong Kong economist

SOUNDBITE: ERIC HU, Managing director of BOC International "The Mainland economy enters "the new normal" phase. Its current pressure is due to some cyclical factors and also comes from its plan to restructure and rebalance the economy. We do not see any recession as we generally define a recession as negative growth of GDP in at least two quarters while the Mainland economy can still maintain a year on year growth at about 6.5 to 7 percent this year and over the next few years. China's economy grew nearly 7 percent in 2015, which is an achievement that could not be gained easily amid the weaker global demand. China is still one of the World's fastest-growing major economies. We believe China have contributed about 30 percent to global economic growth last year. In 2015, US economy saw a mild recovery with a 2.4 percent GDP growth, while Eurozone and Japan's economic recovery were still quite weak with estimated 1.5 and 0.4 GDP growth respectively. Most emerging countries have been hard hit by global economic slowdown."