China has “counter-measures” it can take to offset the negative economic impact of the country’s exclusion from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, its National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.

Sheng Laiyun, NBS spokesman, waded into a growing debate in Beijing about the costs of being left out of the TPP, the US-led pact referred to by some as the “anyone but China” deal. The debate began just days after the US reached a TPP deal with 11 partners, when a People’s Bank of China economist estimated that lost trading opportunities could initially knock 0.5 percentage points off the country’s annual growth.

Mr Sheng said that potential measures include bilateral free trade deals and President Xi Jinping’s effort to construct a “New Silk Road”, officially the “One Belt One Road” plan, linking China and Europe. “TPP will have some impact, but it won’t be significant in the short term,” he said. “Bilateral trade agreements, ‘One Belt One Road’ and new free trade zones [in China] could cushion the impact.”