Fears that China’s economic shocks will continue and upset the world economy are growing – and economists are worried that the results will be catastrophic.

The International Monetary Fund said in its latest Global Financial Stability Report released on Monday that emerging markets now account for up to 40 percent of the variation between exchange rate fluctuations and stock market returns, and with China’s growing financial influence and the importance of the yuan as a funding currency, further jolts from China have a huge risk on the world economy, according to the report.

After exploding over the past decade, China’s economic growth has suddenly stalled, shaking financial markets over the past year and sending commodities and equities diving all around the world.

The IMF urged China to engage in better and more timely communication of its policy decisions and to be transparent in order to avoid market shocks.

“The IMF research shows that among large emerging market economies, China is unique: news about its economic growth has an economically significant and rising impact on global equity prices,” the IMF said in the statement. “In the last five years alone, the impact of growth surprises from China on global equity prices has almost quadrupled. By contrast, changes in Chinese asset prices tend to have little effect on asset prices elsewhere.”

Gaston Gelos, head of the Global Financial Stability Analysis Division at the IMF, said that China has a growing influence on the world economy, and that will only continue.

“Purely financial spillovers from China are still very small, but likely to grow considerably as China gradually continues to integrate into the global financial system,” he said. “The evidence underscores the need for policymakers to take into account economic and policy developments in emerging market economies when assessing their own countries’ prospects.”