In a speech at Beijing University Monday, Gao predicted China would also likely replace the United States as the world's top trading country sometime between 2015 and 2020, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.

Gao said China's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will reach 15 trillion yuan (1.8 trillion dollars) this year, ranking the economy sixth in the world. By the end of the year, China's foreign exchange reserves will reach 800 billion dollars.

China's total foreign trade is expected to top 1.4 trillion billion dollars this year, up 20 percent from 2004, with exports growing 26 percent and imports around 18 percent, Gai said, citing ministry reports.

Xinhua gave no other details about Gao's forecasts on China overtaking Germany and the United States.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in September that China's economic growth rate had averaged 9.5 percent over the past two decades and "seems likely to continue at that pace for some time."

The OECD "China Economic Survey" said China could have the world's fourth largest economy five years from now. The current top four economies, according to OECD data, are the United States, Japan, Germany and France.

"Many industries have become completely integrated into the world's supply chain and, on current trends, China could become the largest exporter in the world by the beginning of the next decade," the OECD report said.

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