The Chinese economy may have already bottomed out, and been on the recovery phase, said Haruhiko Kuroda, President of Asian Development Bank Tuesday.

Kuroda made the judgment at the press conference on the last day of the ADB's Annual Meeting, on the basis of his observations "in this meeting as well as from various statistics already released".

"China's economy is on recovery course and it could recovery much earlier than other economies, but of course, at the same time, we have to be very cautious," Kuroda told reporters.

Kuroda added that the South Korean economy had showed signs of recovery, and Japan's industrial production showed some signs of bottoming out.

"On the whole, I'm cautiously optimistic that Asia will recover by the end of next year," the President said.

ADB forecasts the growth rate for the Asian countries in 2009 is 3.4 percent and they will show a mild recovery in 2010 with a growth rate of more than 6 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency May 6, 2009)