More on the Chinese economy now. Economic performance in 2017 was better than expected, thanks to strong trade and an improved global economy. CGTN's Xu Xinchen spoke to several economists to learn more about the reasons.

China achieved better-than-expected growth in 2017 on the back of an improving world economy and strong trade performance. The growth in 2017 was higher than the central government's target of 6.5 percent.

PROFESSOR GONG JIONG UNIVERSITY OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS "The international markets are recovering. The North American market has reached growth of almost 3 percent. The European market has been recovering quite strongly at about 2 percent. This has been good news that we have been waiting for a long time. And because of that, China's exports have been performing particularly well in the last year -- very strong exports and also imports. So, I think the most important fundamental reason behind this is that the global macro environment has been improving greatly and we are just entering the beginning stage of recovery."

China's 2017 exports and imports grew at their fastest rate in six years -- returning China's trade into positive growth.

In addition, household income continued to grow in 2017. That also helped the overall economy as the country is now more consumption than investment driven. China's credit growth also has been slowing. The People's Bank of China said outstanding yuan loans grew less than 13 percent year-on-year by the end of 2017.

JOHN LITWACK LEAD ECONOMIST FOR CHINA, WORLD BANK "We certainly think that the rapid growth of credit in China is a concern and we think it is very important to bring this under control. From that perspective of view, we are also very happy with the year of 2017. When we were talking in 2015 and 2016, we were also saying that we were happy with the economic growth in China, but it appeared a lot of that growth was supported by unsustainable growth in credit."

China's deleveraging and SOE reforms were expected to continue in 2018 and estimates are that the economy could expand around 6.5 percent this year. XXC, CGTN, Beijing.