China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy.

The China Daily and the Xinhua news agency quoted Yi Gang, China's chief currency regulator, as saying that this achievement is the fruit of three decades of rapid growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

He further said that depending on how fast its exchange rate rises, China is on course to overtaking the United States and vaulting into the No.1 spot sometime around 2025.

This, he said, is according to projections by the World Bank, Goldman Sachs and others.

China'a per-capita income of about 3,800 dollars a year is a fraction of Japan's or America's.

"China is still a developing country, and we should be wise enough to know ourselves," Yi said, when asked whether the time was ripe for the Yuan to become an international currency.

China has averaged more than 9.5 percent growth annually since it embarked on market reforms in 1978. If it can keep up a clip of 5-6 percent a year in the 2020s, it will have maintained rapid growth for 50 years, which Yi said would be unprecedented in human history. (ANI)