BEIJING: China’s GDP growth rebounded to a stronger-than-expected 4.5 percent year-on-year target in the first quarter of this year after reaching 2.9 percent in the last quarter of 2022, pointing to a steady rebound amid the gradual normalization of production, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday. Given China’s strong recovery momentum and low comparison base in the previous year, officials and economists estimated that China’s growth could pick up notably in the second quarter, and the country is well on track to achieving its GDP growth target of around 5 percent in 2023. Meanwhile, they warned that the foundations of recovery are not solid enough, saying that the economy could be dragged down by pressures from a cloudy global outlook, the fading of consumption momentum and challenges and uncertainties related to China’s exports and the property sector. More efforts should be made to further spur domestic demand and stabilize market expectations. NBS spokesman Fu Linghui said China’s economy is stabilizing and picking up in the first quarter with the recovery of key indicators, laying a solid foundation for achieving the country’s annual growth target.
Fu told a news conference in Beijing on Tuesday that China’s growth would pick up notably in the second quarter given the low comparison base amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the past year, while growth may slow down in the third and fourth quarters due to a rise in the comparison bases last year.
On the back of the stronger-than-expected first quarter GDP report, Zhu Haibin, JPMorgan’s chief China economist, said his team raised its full-year GDP growth forecast for China from 6 percent year-on-year to 6.4 percent year-on-year. China is well on track to achieving the government’s GDP growth target of “around 5 percent” for this year, said Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura. “We maintain our GDP growth forecasts of 7.6 percent year-on-year for the second quarter and 5.3 percent for 2023,” he said.
Despite the improvements in the first quarter, Lu said his team still considers it more likely that the People’s Bank of China, the nation’s central bank, will slightly lower the interest rate of the medium-term lending facility operation — a key policy bench mark — in the next couple of months.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
