China will fail to meet its growth target unless Beijing injects more stimulus to prop up the country’s stuttering recovery, but a reliance on iron ore exports from Australia will limit the effect that weakness has on the local economy.

That is the view of a panel of 30 economists surveyed by The Australian Financial Review, who forecast the world’s second-largest economy and Australia’s largest trading partner will grow between 4.2 per cent and 4.8 per cent this year.