(Bloomberg) -- China needs to do more to allow the private sector to create productivity growth, Asian Development Bank Chief Economist Albert Park said, adding that the slowdown in the world’s second biggest economy was a combination of cyclical and structural issues.

“I think they really need to unleash the private sector much more to really capture productivity growth,” Park said at an Asia Society event in Melbourne on Wednesday. “They announced a set of ambitious reforms to support the private sector earlier in the summer. I think everyone’s taking a cautious attitude to see if that really transpires.”

There has been a tilt in China’s playing field that made private businesses feel a variety of risks from regulatory pressure to differential financial access, Park said. Other structural barriers to the mainland’s growth were its rapidly aging society and the absolute size of its labor force decreasing, he added.  

On the issue of rising rice prices, Park said the ADB was urging governments not to try to intervene in the market directly through subsidies or export controls.

“That’s really costly and sends the wrong kind of price signals to both your consumers and producers,” he said.

Park’s comments came after Chinese ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian addressed growing concerns over the state of the Chinese economy while speaking at the same event. Xiao said the worsening data in recent months was only temporary, and that the overall trajectory of the country’s growth was positive. 

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