A more focused urbanization program could generate an investment of 225 trillion yuan ($32.9 trillion) and maintain rapid economic growth in the next decade, and thus help China shed its export-oriented development model.

This is the prescription of Wang Jian, a leading light of China Society of Macroeconomics, for the treatment of the country's economic woes.

Wang was one of the first economists to champion China's expanded global business ties in 1987. But "the times have changed now", he told China Daily yesterday.