Chinese economic growth seen as stable

BEIJING, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- Chinese leaders will go into next month’s 17th Communist Party Congress with impressive achievements, including making China the world’s fourth largest economy.

The National Bureau of Statistics says the country has maintained a solid growth track since 2003 as the economy expanded rapidly, China Daily reported Wednesday.

The report said people’s living standards have improved considerably since the party's last national congress in 2002. The bureau said the World Bank no longer lists China as a low-income country as its per capita income has crossed the $2,000 threshold.

The party congress, with the next one set to start in mid-October led by President Hu Jintao, is held every five years. It is the country’s biggest political event and sets the country’s future course.

The statistics bureau said in 2002, China's overall economic volume was the world’s sixth largest but now is the fourth largest, behind the United States, Japan and Germany. It said China now accounts for more than 5.5 percent of the world's GDP, up from 4.4 percent in 2002.

China’s economy has expanded by more than 10 percent in each of the last four years, or more than double the average world growth rate.