"Although I basically agree with the forecasting logic of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, my research results show that this year's GDP growth rate is at best 7 percent," he said.

"China's excess capacity problem could not just be cyclical. Instead, it is a structural problem. The growth rate will see no improvement until most existing capacity is put to productive use," he said.

Niu Wenyuan, an expert on sustainable development as well as a consultant for the State Council, said that the focus of government should change from GDP growth rate to the quality of GDP.

"The GDP growth rate is going down as China readjusts economic structure, but we can hedge the declining pressure by increasing the quality of GDP," Niu said. "If the growth implies more responsibilities in redistribution and social assistances, it will help us avoid the middle-income trap."

Niu and his team developed a system to evaluate China's GDP quality from its contribution to economic efficiency, social benefit, environment protection, improvement on people's livelihood and sustainability of public management.

The quality report was published on Wednesday in Beijing, which showed that China's GDP quality had increased by 46.5 percent from 1993 to 2013.

"The GDP quality of China had seen a faster increase since 2013, and I am expecting it to increase by 24.2 percent to 33.8 percent till the year 2020," Niu said.