BEIJING - A state think tank expert has forecast China's GDP growth next year will exceed 8 percent and he projected consumer inflation increase to be higher than this year.

Lu Zhongyuan, deputy director of the Development Research Center under the State Council, or China's Cabinet, said there is no doubt China's economy will grow by more than 8 percent in 2013 and the government should focus more on promoting sustainable growth and containing imported inflation.

China's economy has bottomed out since June of the year, buoyed by the country's economic restructuring, innovation incentive and the market's self-stabilizing forces, Lu said, adding these momentum will continue to drive up growth in the year ahead.

The country may face more severe imported inflation next year because of excessive liquidity globally following the loose monetary policies implemented by some major economies, he warned at an economic forum held Saturday in Beijing.

China's GDP rose 7.4 percent in the third quarter from one year earlier, slowing for seven consecutive quarters and marking the lowest growth in more than three years. Consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, grew 2 percent in November, picking up from October's 1.7-percent rise.

The National Bureau of Statistics is scheduled to announce the fourth-quarter GDP growth rate and that for the whole year of 2012 on January 18.