BEIJING: The global economic landscape has been changing continuously since the start of the year, with ups and downs predicted for various countries, but the forecast for China has remained constant since January: growing at 5.2 percent in 2023, and 4.5 percent next year.
The figures are according to the quarterly update of the World Economic Outlook, released on Tuesday by the International Monetary Fund, which predicted that global growth would fall from an estimated 3.5 percent in 2022 to 3 percent this year and next.
Compared with projections that IMF made in April, global growth has been upgraded by 0.2 percentage point for 2023, with no change for 2024. Still, it remains well below the historical annual average of 3.8 percent seen between 2000 and 2019.
For China, the IMF projected in January that the country’s economy would expand by 5.2 percent this year from 3 percent last year, as mobility and activity picked up after the lifting of pandemic restrictions, though it still faced significant economic challenges, including the contraction in the real estate sector.
The global lender has reiterated its growth rate prediction for the world’s second-largest economy in its July forecast, as it did in April, though Wall Street has changed GDP forecasts for China nearly every month so far this year.
In comparison, the US growth rate is projected to slow down from 2.1 percent in 2022 to 1.8 percent in 2023, and then slow further to 1 percent in 2024. For 2023, the forecast has been revised upward by 0.2 percentage point from the July projection, while for 2024, the forecast is down by 0.1 percentage point, according to the IMF.
The forecast for China closely mirrors the situation on the ground, as the National Bureau of Statistics last week said that China’s GDP grew 5.5 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2023, driven by stronger consumption and steadily improving services.
The IMF noted that manufacturing activity and consumption of services in China rebounded at the beginning of the year following the easing of strict lockdown policies. It said the country’s net exports contributed strongly to sequential growth in February and March as supply chains normalized and companies swiftly cleared backlog of orders. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
