(Yicai Global) Jan. 3 -- The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Bank of China Ltd. [SHA:601988] and other prestigious institutions and firms foresee 6.7 percent growth in China's gross domestic product this year.

China's GDP growth last year registered 6.8 percent -- an increase of 0.1 percentage points over 2016 -- and it is expected to achieve 6.7 percent this year, CASS noted in its 2018 China Economic Forecast. More attention should go to improving quality and efficiency, while maintaining steady GDP growth, Bank of China noted in a report, as the Economic Information Daily reported today.

A retrospective on last year shows the global economy overall steadily recovering. The economic revival in the US, the EU and Japan, above all, beat expectations and significantly improved China's external demand dynamics. The country also sped up the adjustment of its economic structure, thereby yielding better-than-expected fiscal results, rapid growth in industrial production, and further elevation of consumer demand, CASS said in its report.

On the flipside, the labor supply in China has been shrinking since 2012, and has stagnated at low levels in recent years. The growth rate in capital stock also dropped as the growth rate of fixed-asset investment stalled. Supply-side reform has made some headway; however, the problem of overcapacity in traditional industries has not been fundamentally resolved and the government still needs to pay heed to real estate and local government debt issues, said Zhu Baoliang, chief economist with the State Information Center.