China’s labour supply would remain stable until at least 2030 despite the country having an ageing population and a low fertility rate, said a scholar at a state-run think tank.

Zhang Juwei, director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the Chinese population was expected to peak at 1.413 billion in 2025.

The total population in 2050 would be “much lower” that the present size of nearly 1.4 billion, he said at a two-day seminar on economic restructuring and changes of employment structures in Brussels starting Monday.

But he predicts the labour supply would remain stable until at least 2030 with between 14.93 million and 16.98 million people entering the labour market each year. “We believe that China’s demographic changes, even amid the challenges, can sustain at least 10 years of medium speed growth [in the economy] if we have sensible policy options,” he noted.

“These projections are part of the background reports we submitted for China’s leadership to consider when it designs its new national five-year plan,” he added.

The country’s leaders are expected to meet this month to draft the 13th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development. It will cover the period from 2016 to 2020.