SINGAPORE: China's troubled property sector will continue to weigh on growth and will not be an engine of growth until there is some "cleaning up" of the market, the International Monetary Fund's chief economist said on Tuesday.

Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, speaking in Singapore about the IMF's latest global growth forecasts, said that the reopening of China's economy from strict COVID-19 lockdowns will stoke a rebound in growth in 2023, but this is not expected to be sustained in 2024 and future years.

"The property sector is a very important sector, was one of the important components of growth in past years, and going forward, this is something that is not going to be as much of an engine of growth until there's been some cleaning up in that sector," Gourinchas told a news conference. (Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Himani Sarkar)