China's economic growth has remained respectable amid a difficult global environment, but it is still too early to say if the economy has really bottomed out, according to Louis Kuijs, senior economist, World Bank.

Kuijs noted that given the subdued prospects for the world economy, "more data is needed" to prove that China's current economic recovery is for real.

"With world demand weak and a lot of spare capacity available globally and also in China, there is a lot of downward pressure on manufacturing output," he told the spring membership meeting of the Institute of International Finance in Beijing on Wednesday.