China's economy to grow by 2.0 pct in 2020, says World Bank

China's economy is expected to grow by 2.0 percent in 2020, up from the 1 percent projection released in June, the World Bank said on Monday.

The growth will be boosted by government spending, strong exports and a low rate of new COVID-19 infections since March, but checked by slow domestic consumption, the bank said in its October 2020 Economic Update for East Asia and the Pacific.

The rest of the region, however, is projected to contract by 3.5 percent, according to the report. The region as a whole is expected to grow by only 0.9 percent in 2020, the lowest rate since 1967.

In the semi-annual Global Economic Prospects released in early June, the World Bank projected that East Asia and Pacific would grow by 0.5 percent in 2020.

The World Bank said in the regional update that prospects for the region are brighter in 2021, with growth expected to reach 7.9 percent in China and 5.1 percent in the rest of the region, "based on the assumption of continued recovery and normalization of activity in major economies, linked to the possible arrival of a vaccine."

The multilateral lender, however, pointed out that output is projected to remain well below pre-pandemic projections for the next two years. It noted that the outlook is particularly dire for some highly-exposed Pacific Island countries where output is projected to remain about 10 percent below pre-crisis levels through 2021.