Beijing

THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) increased its estimate for China's average annual growth rate through 2020, while warning that it would come at the cost of rising debt that increases medium-term risks to growth.

China's economy will expand at an average pace of 6.4 per cent annually from 2017 through 2020, compared with a 6 per cent estimate a year earlier, the IMF said in its Article IV review. Household, corporate and government debt will increase to almost 300 per cent of gross domestic product by 2022 from 242 per cent last year, fund staff estimated.