CHICAGO - China has been trying to generate more demand from itself, which is likely to become the engine of world economy in 5-10 years, an economist at the University of Chicago said Tuesday.

Raghuram Rajan, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, told a forum here that China had pledged to be independent from foreign capital for growth in the 1998 Asian financial crisis and realized it by focusing on export, which helped generate capital for itself.

The expert meanwhile hailed China's capacity of achieving growth without depending on the industrialized countries for demand during the latest global financial crisis.

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The world's economy as a whole will be more balanced as the emerging markets, including China, are to produce much bigger demand, Rajan said.

China has pledged more efforts to spur domestic demand in the wake of the global financial crisis. Statistics showed that consumption had contributed to 52.5 percent of China's gross domestic product growth in 2009.