China’s economy is set to grow 5.4 percent this year, having made a “strong” post-COVID recovery, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on November 07, 2023, making an upward revision to its earlier forecast of 5 percent growth, while expecting slower growth next year. The IMF said continued weakness in the property sector and subdued external demand could restrict gross domestic product growth to 4.6 percent in 2024, which was still better than the 4.2 percent forecast contained in its World Economic Outlook (WEO), published in October 2023.
The upward revision followed a decision by China to approve a 1 trillion yuan ($137 billion) sovereign bond issue and allow local governments to frontload part of their 2024 bond quotas, in a move to support the economy. “We have revised up growth by 0.4 percentage points in both years relative to our October WEO projections, reflecting stronger than expected growth in the third quarter and the new policy support that was recently announced,” IMF’s First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath said in Beijing.
Over the medium term, growth is projected to gradually slow to about 3.5 percent by 2028 amid headwinds from weak productivity and population aging, Gopinath told a news conference to mark the release of the fund’s ‘Article IV’ review of China’s economic policies. China has introduced numerous measures to support the property market, but more is needed to secure a quicker recovery and lower economic costs to bring it down to a more sustainable size, she said. “For the real estate sector, such a policy package will require accelerating the exit of non-viable property developers, removing impediments to housing price adjustment, and increasing central government funding for housing completion, among other measures,” Gopinath said
The combination of the downturn in the property sector and local government debt crunch could wipe out much of China’s long-term growth potential, economists say. Local debt has reached 92 trillion yuan ($12.6 trillion), or 76 percent of China’s economic output in 2022, up from 62.2 percent in 2019. China’s Politburo, a top decision-making body of the ruling Communist Party, said in late July it would announce measures to reduce local government debt risks. https://shorturl.at/grtFK
Source: IBP