China needs to transform its economic growth pattern and the next 30 years will be vital for the transition, a visiting Chinese economist said here on Monday.

"China needs to transfer its development pattern from scale dividend into productivity and institutional dividend," Qin Xiao, chairman of Boyuan Foundation and former head of China Merchants Group, Ltd., said at a forum here.

China's economic development has been relying on the so-called "scale dividend" during the past three decades, but such a development mode could not be sustained with an aging population, heavy reliance on exports and other challenges, he said.

"Entering a new phase" of "healthier, more balanced and more sustainable" development, Qin said, China needs to pursue "the productivity dividend" and "institutional dividend" in economic development.

"The theme for the next 30 years is to achieve endogenous growth through improvement of human capital, technical innovation and the upgrading of industrial structure from low value-added to high value-added," he said.

China's leaders have recently been reiterating the need to transform the country's economic development pattern and adjust the economic structure at a faster pace.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in October that accelerating the transformation of China's economic growth pattern is a task of great urgency for the country's development. CPSC opens office in Beijing