China's economic performance should be reflected in int'l monetary system: former German banker

China's dynamic market and continued economic growth should be reflected in the international monetary and financial system, according to Andreas Dombret, former board member of the German central bank, Deutsche Bundesbank.

Dombret made the remarks on the sidelines of the international conference "80 Years after Bretton Woods: Building an International Monetary and Financial System for All" and the 2024 Tsinghua PBCSF Global Finance Forum which kicked off Monday in Hangzhou City, in east China's Zhejiang Province.

At the two-day forum, global economists and academics have gathered to discuss ways to build an international monetary and financial system that benefits the entire international community as the Bretton Woods system marks its 80-year anniversary.

During an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), Dombret noted that the scale of China's economy nowadays makes it more challenging to sustain its previous high growth rates.

"China's economy is now at a much different plateau than it was when I took office in 2010, which means that the larger you are, the more difficult it gets to sustain the same growth level. And it's going to come down because of the base effect of your economy being so much larger. So the International Monetary Fund is expecting the Chinese economy to grow by 4.6 percent this year, and by 4.1 percent next year. So there is a little bit of a trend of your growth coming down. And I don't think this is something unusual -- that is to be expected," he said.

The Bretton Woods system, which was forged in 1944, does not reflect China's growing importance and its contribution to the global economy, according to Dombret.

"The Bretton Woods system is 80 years old, and it was actually put into place after a major world war. So over time and over so many decades things change of course, and they always need to be reformed. The dynamic emerging markets, especially I'm thinking of course of China and India, they really have grown in importance, which needs to be reflected in their quota in the International Monetary Fund," he said.

While China's economic growth has moderated from its previous high levels, it still outpaces the global average, Dombret noted.

"China is a very, very important part of this, but it cannot sustain its high growth levels of the past, but by no means, this is a landing scenario. You are still growing, and you are growing at a higher pace than the global economy, which is growing at around about 3.2 percent so even a 4.6-percent growth this year is above the global average," he said.

China's economic performance should be reflected in int'l monetary system: former German banker

China's economic performance should be reflected in int'l monetary system: former German banker

Authorities in southern China have stepped up rescue efforts after Super Typhoon Yagi roared ashore bringing strong winds, rains and flooding.

The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters raised its emergency flood and typhoon response from Level IV to Level III in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on Friday after Yagi made landfall in the neighboring island province of Hainan.

With the typhoon weakening in Guangxi, the local railway operator has carried out inspections and repairs on railroads, and resumed train operations from 15:00 on Saturday on local high-speed railway lines.

In response to the challenges facing Guangxi, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters sent a working group to the province to assist in relief work on Friday.

The working group supported local authorities in Nanning, capital city of Guangxi in allocating 12,500 sets of relief material including tents and emergency lighting to typhoon-hit regions, and organized 2,100 firefighters to prepare for emergency rescue. It also organized the provincial natural resources, housing and construction departments to strengthen inspections of key areas such as dams, reservoirs and locations prone to geological hazards. At the same time, it put 20 professional rescue teams in place in case of emergency.

According to the working group's leader Zhao Zhigang, by 11:00 on Saturday, six cities and 15 counties had been severely impacted by the typhoon, with 60,223 residents affected. He said the local power grid operator had reported that 267,845 users had lost power due to the typhoon, while power supply had been restored to 160,707 users, adding that the power supply department is making every effort to speed up repair work.

Elsewhere, Yagi made a second landfall in Xuwen County, in the city of Zhanjiang in south China's Guangdong Province on Friday evening.

In neighboring Leizhou City rescue workers have been busy clearing fallen trees from roads and fixing damaged fiber-optic cables and base stations.

About 18,000 hectares of farmland in Leizhou, which is a major food producing area in Guangdong, has been affected by the typhoon, with 16,000 hectares of crops, including more than 1,133 hectares of bananas, lost to the storm.

Relief efforts underway as Typhoon Yagi hits southern China