New Leadership in China could help accelerate economic growth

China's economic growth will accelerate because the country will finally get leaders who aren't scared, a former advisor to China's central bank said Wednesday.

"The most important reason is that there is a new group of officials being appointed " (who will emerge) around the 19th Party Congress which will be in mid to late October," said Li Daokui, who is now Dean of the Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Li said the Chinese economy will grow 6.9 to 7 percent by 2018 from 6.7 percent in 2017. China posted 6.7 percent GDP growth in 2016, the slowest in 26 years.

"These (new) officials have been carefully, carefully scrutinized before they are appointed so they are clean. They are not worried about becoming targets of anti-corruption investigations," he added.