IMF official says China's growth could beat forecast in 2015

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - China's economy could overshoot the International Monetary Fund's forecast and grow close to 7 percent this year although the outlook for the medium term is more uncertain, a senior IMF official said on Wednesday.

Changyong Rhee, director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, said potential spillovers from China to other regional economies were larger than expected.

China's growth rate of 6.9 percent between July and September meant the country could beat the IMF's forecast of 6.8 percent expansion in 2015, he said.

"Actually at this moment the ... overall 2015 growth rate may be close to 7 (percent) and above our 6.8 percent," he said at an event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Rhee said the Fund did not see a hard landing for China and was more concerned about the potential impact of slower growth on other countries in the region, partly due to closer trade ties.

A one percent growth shock from China could take more than 0.3 percentage point from overall Asian growth, IMF staff calculations showed.

(Reporting by Krista Hughes; Editing by Andrea Ricci)