IMF says China has scope to respond to global risks

China has the scope to respond if global economic risks materialize, and the country's response could partially but not entirely offset the impact of a global crisis, the International Monetary Fund's Asia and Pacific director said on Thursday.

Anoop Singh, director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific department, added that the yen's current level did not pose an immediate risk to Japan's economic recovery and that recent data reinforced the Bank of Japan's view that the economic recovery was taking hold.

Worries have mounted in Japan that yen strength would damage the country's export-reliant economy.

Singh was speaking at a briefing on the IMF's regional economic outlook report for the Asia-Pacific region, which warned that an escalating European debt crisis and U.S. slowdown could bring severe spillover effects into Asia.

(Reporting by Rie Ishiguro; Editing by Edmund Klamann)