September 04, 2007	Tuesday	Sha'aban 21, 1428

GENEVA, Sept 3: China’s booming export-driven economy remains vulnerable to any changes in Western consumption patterns but its burgeoning domestic market could lessen this risk, the World Economic Forum said on Monday.

China’s retail sector is currently growing at a rate of 13 per cent and investors are increasingly focusing on the Asian giant as a source of consumers and not just simply cheap labour, the WEF said in a report on the risks to the global economy.

The report comes ahead of a WEF-sponsored meeting in Dalian, China from September 6-8, called the “Inaugural Annual Meeting of New Champions” and featuring over 1,700 Chinese and Western participants.

The world’s economy in general remains dependent on its biggest single market, the US, where consumption has grown by 3.5pc per year since 1998, it said.

“It is easy to see why many observers fear the dependency on a single source of demand,” the report said, especially given the recent fears of a credit crunch sparked by problems in the US housing market.

US consumption has been funded by debt -- both by consumers borrowing against high house prices, and Asian and oil-exporting countries investing in US Treasury bills, the report noted.—AFP