The World Bank has raised its near-term economic forecasts for China while repeating calls for President Xi Jinping to pursue deep reforms to address lagging confidence and structural problems in the world’s second-biggest economy.

The multilateral lender said on Thursday that it had revised its forecast for China’s GDP growth next year upwards by 0.4 percentage points to 4.5 per cent, reflecting a series of policy easing measures announced by Beijing over the past three months as well as the strength of the country’s exports.

The World Bank also raised its full-year forecast for this year by 0.1 percentage points to 4.9 per cent, just shy of Beijing’s own growth target for 2024 of around 5 per cent. The economy recorded growth of 4.8 per cent in the first nine months of the year.