There is no real proof that the US economy will recover in two years, prominent US economist Martin Feldstein said on Monday.

"It's very hard to predict when the US economy will come out of the current downturn," Feldstein, a Harvard professor, told Xinhua on the sidelines of the China Development Forum 2009.

Feldstein, who was the former head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, is one of the members of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board, a team named by US President Barack Obama last month to help lift the economy out of the ongoing recession.

Feldstein said the stimulus package adopted by the US government was not enough to avert the sliding trend of the US economy.

As to the European economies, Feldstein said they were probably weaker than the US economy.

"But the European governments are not actively dealing with the downturn. Specially, Italy and France are resisting large fiscal stimulus. So I'm worried that they too will have a hard time coming out of this downturn," he said.

As to China's economy, Feldstein said: "My impression is that China has a quite substantial stimulus package that is going to be successful in bringing China's economic activity back up to substantial growth rate by some time next year."

"I don't know whether China will reach this goal of 8 percent for 2009. But I think, by 2010 China will be growing at numbers like 8 percent," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency March 24, 2009)