China should not find it tough to reach its newly announced target of 6% growth this year, but to keep up the economic momentum, the country should develop advanced technology and the domestic market, a Hong Kong scholar based in the United States has said.

The Chinese government is aiming for 6% growth in gross domestic product in 2021, a goal that Premier Li Keqiang defended on Thursday by saying it was not low.

Li’s target is below market expectations, as analysts are generally expecting the world’s second largest economy to achieve around 8% growth in GDP.

Kevin Tsui, an associate professor of economics at Clemson University in South Carolina, agreed that the figure was not low compared with developed Western countries, whose targets were set at only 2% to 3%. Among developing countries, some African states registered zero or even negative growth year after year.

However, there were also emerging economies that were capable of recording double-digit growth, he said.

China also enjoyed double-digit GDP growth in the 1990s right up to 2000, but Tsui explained that as its demographic dividends dwindled, coupled with economic restructuring and increasing labor costs, the country could no longer depend on a cheap workforce to drive its economy, so the 6% was not considered low.

Demographic dividend refers to growth in an economy that results from changes in the age structure of the country’s population.

Tsui said that to maintain the momentum, China should focus on developing science and technology and building its own brands, just like Japan did years ago, although obstacles to the restructuring process could be expected because of Chinese tensions with the United States.

Domestic demand would be another source of boosting the economy, due to the country’s 1.3 billion population, the economist added. If people stayed within China to spend their money, the demand could support the local economy.

Li the premier had predicted 14 million new entrants to the job market, including 9.09 million college graduates, and forecast an elderly population of 260 million. These were two key hidden concerns that might drag down the country’s economic growth, Tsui said, taking into account the ageing of the national population, the one-child policy and the low fertility rate.

At the same time, relations with the U.S. were tense, foreign investors were taking out their capital and job positions were on the decline, Tsui noted. All these issues could pose difficulties for the record high number of new graduates to find jobs this year, he said.

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