The overall trend of stable and rapid development of the Chinese economy would not alter after the Olympic Games, a senior expert said on Sunday.

"The Olympics will not become a watershed of China's economic development, as the fundamental factors that have supported China's economic progress in the past 30 years are not to change markedly," Wang Yiming, an expert with the thinktank under the National Development and Reform Commission, told a press conference.

Wang listed such factors as the country's high deposit rate, large scale urbanization and infrastructure investment, upgrading of residents consumption modes, huge market potentials as well as its active and voluntary integration into economic globalization.

"These driving forces will not change with the finishing of the Olympic Games," he said.

Besides, the Olympic economy exerted a relatively small impact on a country as big as China, Wang said. "After 30 years of development, China has turned into the fourth biggest economy of the world."

He said, "Although the Olympic economy has contributed much to Beijing's economic development, the city's economy only accounted for 3.6 percent of that of the whole country. Besides, Beijing's venue and infrastructure investment only accounted for 0.55 percent-1.06 percent of China's overall fixed assets investment in the past four years."

"So the 'post-Olympics effect' will not affect the basics of China's economic development."

Besides, the expert said, China was still in the middle of industrialization. "From cities to the countryside, and from infrastructure to manufacturing and service industries, all harbor great development potentials."

The Chinese government has made ensuring a stable and rapid development of the economy and curbing rapid price rise as its top priorities, and was taking measures to increase domestic demand, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2008)