DESPITE the possibility foreign direct investment into China may not keep the same level as last year, the long-term trend is that firms here for the Chinese market continue to be in the country, said a World Bank official. Martin Raiser, World Bank country director for China, said that China remains an attractive place for global business, despite rising wages compared with its competitors. “China produces the whole spectrum of manufactured goods, low-skilled goods, medium-skilled goods, and increasingly high-skilled or high technology content goods. Over time, we would expect China to move out of the lower-skilled segment,” he said. In the World Bank’s latest “East Asia and Pacific Economic Update,” China is projected to grow 5% in the baseline and 4% in the downside scenario in 2022. Raiser said the 5% growth rate, in the context of the global economy, “is good growth,” given the combined shocks of conflicts in Ukraine, which pushed up the commodity and energy prices and negatively affected the growth of advanced economies, as well as resurgence of the Omicron variant. “We need to recognize that the shocks are serious. The whole of the world is going to suffer as a result. Since China is a part of the world economy, it will also be affected,” he added. Raiser suggested policy tools for addressing people’s immediate needs and targeting the long-term goal of rebalancing the economy. (Xinhua) | 