China’s economic growth could moderate further in 2020 — even though the global economy is likely to pick up pace, projected the International Monetary Fund.

The fund said the Chinese economy could grow at 5.8% next year — slower than the 6.1% forecast for 2019. China grew 6.6% last year, according to the IMF.

“The Chinese economy is slowing down, which has continued an earlier trend of slowing down, which started a couple of years ago,” Tao Zhang, IMF’s deputy managing director, told.

“In recent years, what’s going on in the world — we have trade tensions, we have other geopolitical forces, we have all these uncertainties around the world ... these add further downside pressures to the Chinese economy,” he added.

Still, Zhang said such growth rates are “reasonable” given that China is restructuring its economy to expand in a more sustainable way. That means relying less on debt to fuel growth, while focusing more on domestic consumption.

Such a transition would translate to slower but better quality growth in China, according to Zhang.