China's slowing economy does not need any big stimulus, because the jobs market continues to be strong, the Chinese central bank's chief economist said Saturday.
Ma Jun, the top economic advisor at the People's Bank of China, said that although the country's overheated real estate sector is slowing sharply, he did not see a substantial net impact on jobs.
Instead, the growth in domestic consumption and the shift in the economy from manufacturing toward services is creating more opportunities than are lost.
"The labor market is getting tighter despite the slowdown in economic growth," he said at the Institute of International Finance in Washington.
Ma, who joined the PBOC in April after serving as Deutsche Bank's top China economist, said the real estate sector, which has taken 20 percent of all domestic investment, could worsen.
"Some further deceleration maybe be possible," with large knock-on effects to the cement and steel industries.
Even so, he said: "We are not too concerned… The labor market is at least stable and may be improving."
Ma said overall the government does not need to unleash large stimulus, which could at any rate end up back in the real estate sector where bad loans are already mounting.
"At the macro level, I think we need to avoid excessive stimulus," he said. Across China "the investment-to-GDP ratio is still too high."
