China has moved ahead of Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, a senior central bank official said in an interview published Friday.

Yi Gang, a vice-governor of the People's Bank of China and also the head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), did not explain how he had arrived at the figures, according to the comments posted on the SAFE website.

"China is actually now already the world's second-largest economy," Yi said in an interview with China Reform magazine.

China has powered out of the global crisis on the back of a stimulus package worth 586 billion dollars and state-backed bank lending, with its economy growing 10.3 percent in the second quarter and 11.1 percent in the first half.

China's gross domestic product in the first six moths stood at 17.284 trillion yuan, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. That comes to 2.5324 trillion dollars, using the central bank's average monthly exchange rates.

Japan is due to release its first-half GDP figure in mid August.