BEIJING, May?30 (Xinhuanet) -- Although being world's second largest economy and having made great contribution to world economic growth, China remains a developing country, experts have said.

China still lags behind the United States in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), said Nataliya Gribova, head of the Research Planning and Development Department of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies.

The share of services and consumption in China's GDP, although it is growing at a rapid pace, is still at a lower level than that of developed countries, she added.

"We should be 'clear-headed' about China’s development phase," Wang Yuanhong, an economist at China's State Information Center remarked in a recent article published on the official website of China Daily.

Despite its economic achievements, China remains the world's largest developing country, he argued.

China still has a low per capita GDP, grapples with a lingering urban-rural gap, and is weak in industrial competitiveness and technological innovation, he added.

A 2016 World Bank report shows that China's per capita income was far below developed nations like the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan.

Gedion Jalata, CEO of the Center for Excellence International Consult, an Ethiopian Consulting firm, agreed with the opinion.

According to him, claims made by some western officials and experts that "China should be considered as a developed nation" are wrong.

He pointed to the evidently unbalanced regional development in China.

"Chinese cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hangzhou can rival in economic output and innovation [with] cities like New York and London," he said.

"However, its hinterland and far western provinces lag behind the coastal areas in economic development, infrastructure and even education," he stressed.