China needs to re-work its economic policies and growth strategies if it wants to continue enjoying a more than 9 percent annual growth, which catapulted it to become the world's second-largest economy now, otherwise it is also doomed to suffer what the U.S. and Europe are presently experiencing.

Its economic machinery plans proved to be effective for China since it opened its economy in the last 1970s, but as cliché is wont to say, countries need to adapt to the changing times, moreso given the financial crisis affecting global economies today.

In the latest Bloomberg Global Poll of investors, most global investors and analysts, or 59 percent, foresee China will register economic gains of less than 5 percent annually by 2016. In the Sept. 26 poll that comprised of 1,031 investors, analysts and traders, 12 percent predicted the slowdown will occur this year, while 47 percent said it could occur in two to five years.

The respondents also doubted China's present staying power, with 38 percent seeing it as "deteriorating" versus 13 percent who saw it as "improving." However, majority or 47 percent sees it as "stable."

China has enjoyed an annual average growth rate of 10 percent since Deng Xiaoping relaxed the country's policies and opened it to the world in 1979. The economic boom hauled up more than 600 million Chinese out of poverty and turned China to become the world's largest exporter.

Then came the global financial crisis hitting world economies today that started in 2008. Although China continued to spur a positive growth rate, it could not be denied that the world's second-largest economy is slowly being affected after its National Bureau of Statistics reported a $230 billion decline in exports in 2009, the most since 1979.

Seeing the demand for its exports fall, China manufacturing industry has reported a slowdown. Last week, the HSBC's flash purchasing managers' index for September was at 49.4, down from August's 49.9 and only a notch higher than July's 49.3. All registered below 50 three times in a row, indicative of China's production output slowdown.

"China's economic growth engine needs a tune up," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in a Beijing press briefing Sept. 5. "It's hard for me to see that a continued reliance on export-led and investment-led growth will work for China over the next 10 years."

Last week's performance of dropping prices of commodities, particularly coal and copper, is indicative of China's manufacturing slowdown. Coal prices has dropped about 46 percent since a high on May 31 in Hong Kong trading, while copper experienced its hardest fall in three years when it dropped by more than 7 percent to their lowest levels in a year at $3.48 a pound. China is the world's biggest consumer of copper.

Suffice to say the prices of raw materials are dropping because China is not buying them, because China is slowing manufacturing because consumers are no longer buying their exports.

China is now trying to shift its economy to a more consumer-driven model to allow it to stay afloat amid the massive global fiscal crisis.

Last week, the International Monetary Fund slashed its GDP projections for China to 9.5 percent this year from last year's 9.6 percent. Projections of economic growth of the world's second-largest economy for 2012 were likewise lowered to 9 percent from 9.5 percent.