The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday raised China's economic growth forecast for 2007 to 11.2 percent, up 1.2 percentage points from its forecast in April.

The growth in China for 2008 is expected to 10.5 percent, 1.0 point higher from the earlier forecast, the IMF said in a revision of its World Economic Outlook.

"For some time China has been the largest contributor to global growth measured in purchasing power parity," Charles Collyns, the IMF deputy director of research, said at a news conference.

"With the growth slowdown in the United States, China will be contributing the largest part to the increase in the global growth measured at market exchange rates as well as purchasing parity terms," he noted.

He said China has accounted for one quarter of the annual growth rate of the world economy, adding that China, together with India and Russia, would provide half the growth.

The IMF official said that China would represent 15 percent of the global economy on purchasing power parity terms, while on market-exchange rate terms, China only accounts for five percent of the global economy.

(Xinhua News Agency July 26 2005)