WASHINGTON - China's growth remains strong despite a moderate decline and its economy is not heading for a hard landing, an expert of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Wednesday.

The Chinese economy has trended down over the last few quarters, but still it grew at a rate of 7.5 percent in the second quarter, which "we understand is very much in line with the government's own target," Markus Rodlauer, Deputy Director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department, told Xinhua.

Official data showed that China's economic growth decelerated from 7.7 percent in the first quarter to 7.5 percent in the second, matching the government's full-year target, a rate that would make this year the slowest in two decades.

Talking down the importance of numbers, Rodlauer said China's economy slows in part on falling exports. "Clearly, weak export demand from the advanced economy is dampening factor for growth in China."

Meanwhile, he noted that recent slowdown in growth momentum is to some extent anticipated as the Chinese government refrained from launching stimulus as heavily as in the past through higher investment and credit expansion.

He said although the current growth is lower compared with the double-digit rate before the financial crisis, it is still high by global standards. More importantly, it is a growth rate that is sustainable over the medium term and such a trend, in his view, bodes well for the global economy as a whole.

China has become a major player in the global economy and the key growth force that has sustained growth in Asia and the world, said Rodlauer.

So China has been watched very closely, and "every time something happens in China, markets react globally now," he said.

As head of IMF's China mission, Rodlauer and his colleagues have just finished the Fund's annual economic assessment report of China.