One of the benefits of China shifting its economy away from traditional manufacturing is that the country's economic growth will be less reliant on borrowing, an economist said on Monday.

"[China is] trying to boost growth of the new economy, as the new economy is less credit intensive. That's also helping deleveraging efforts in China," said Robin Xing, Morgan Stanley's chief China economist.

Speaking to CNBC on the sidelines of the Morgan Stanley China Technology, Media and Telecoms Conference in Beijing, Xing spoke against the backdrop of longstanding concerns about the sustainability of three decades of breakneck debt-fueled growth in the world's second-largest economy.

Morgan Stanley's GDP forecast for China is 6.5 percent this year. China's official 2017 growth target had been around 6.5 percent, and that's likely to remain unchanged this year, Reuters reported last Thursday, citing unnamed sources.

In 2016, China's growth was 6.7 percent, which was the slowest in almost three decades.