MEETING OF MINDS: Experts, government authorities and heads of international organizations discuss the global economic recovery and China's role in Davos, Switzerland on January 25 (WANG SIWEI)

At 8:55 a.m. on January 22, in a small town named Davos in Switzerland, a conference room is filled with moguls from different fields to discuss the topic of the most immediate relevance to the global economy—China. The conference is taking place as part of the annual meeting of World Economic Forum (WEF).

"In the special session on China, no seats were available even before it started. Some people stood and listened for the whole session," Li Tie, Director General of China Center for Urban Development, wrote in his microblog, a Twitter-like website service. "The enthusiasm shown toward China-related topics is rarely seen in other areas."

During the four-day meeting lasting from January 22 to 25, over 2,500 participants from almost 100 countries, including more than 1,500 business leaders and over 40 heads of state and government, exchanged views on problems such as global economic recovery, financial outlook, new energy, health and climate change.

The theme for this year's forum, Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business, sets out in exact terms the three dimensions of the world's current circumstances.

China was undoubtedly a buzzword. In the 115-page forum agenda, China was mentioned over 100 times. Eight sessions focused on sustainable economic growth in China, which is deliberately taking a bit of steam out of its economic engine to restructure its economy. How China, the world's most dynamic economy, lives up to its role in the reshaping of the world and how the world judges its reform has become a focus of this year's forum.

"Compared with several years ago, the WEF no longer focuses on financial crisis, while China's economic slowdown and reforms are one of the main focuses," said Shi Liwei, Managing Director of the WEF (China).

Examining the slowdown

The global economy is on a bumpy path to recovery, shadowed by uncertainty, potential risks and challenges, experts said at the forum.

The Chinese economy expanded 7.7 percent in 2013, the slowest rate of annual growth since 1999. As emerging economies, in particular China, have served as the backbone to global economic growth after the 2008 financial crisis, there have been mounting concerns over the fact that the recent slowdown in China might deal a blow to the fragile global economic recovery. The flipside of the sweeping reforms promised by China's Central Government may be a further slowdown.

To this end, Liu Mingkang, former Chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said at the Davos forum that China has deliberately slowed its pace of growth, in a bid to create more room for its economic restructuring.

"The pace of growth is slowing down. That's a fact," he said. "China wishes to change its growth model from relying on export and investment to promoting domestic consumption, and it is determined to reduce overcapacity and local government borrowing," he said.

"The process is painful, but as the saying goes 'no pain, no gain,'" Liu said.

Hellmut Schuette, Vice President and Dean of China Europe International Business School, sees the slowdown of the growth rate in China as a natural development after years of breakneck growth.

"It is still growing very fast and we have to bear that in mind," he emphasized.