GENEVA — China's faster than expected economic rebound after the COVID-19 shock is a bright spot and could serve as a roadmap for other countries, said Saadia Zahidi, a Managing Director at the World Economic Forum (WEF), in an interview with Xinhua on Jan 18.

"China is clearly one of the few large economies in the world that has seen that kind of recovery in the growth numbers," she said.

China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Jan 18 that the country's economy grew more than expected in 2020 by 2.3 percent year-on-year.

Accordingly, China is expected to be the only major economy to post growth in the pandemic-ravaged year.

The country's gross domestic product (GDP) exceeded the 100-trillion-yuan ($15.42 trillion) threshold in 2020, NBS said.

This marked a new economic milestone for the Chinese economy after the country's GDP per capita exceeded $10,000 in 2019 for the first time in history.

Earlier this month, the World Bank Group said that it expected China's economy to expand by 7.9 percent in 2021, while the global economy is on track to grow by 4 percent.

Zahidi said that the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic should be "green."

"We need to ensure that coming out of the crisis, economies are dealing with mitigating some of the future concerns. One is the concern around social fragmentation. For that it is important that the future economy provides jobs, inclusion, skills and education for everybody."

"The second element is that we have to ensure that our future economies are embedding sustainability from the beginning. A growth model has inclusion and sustainability at its core. That is what is going to be critical for China and for other big economies," she said.

China is currently transitioning to a green and low-carbon economy. The country aims to see its CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.