Confidence of intl investors gets big boost

China's accelerating economic recovery has added to foreign investors' confidence in the world's second-largest economy, international business leaders and economists said.

With the consumption and services sectors recording major recovery, the Chinese economy is expected to offer a glimmer of hope amid the gloomy world economic outlook, although it still faces pressure from insufficient external demand and challenges in sectors like property and private investment, they said.

On the heels of China's release of major economic data for the first quarter of this year, multiple international investment banks and financial institutions, including JPMorgan, Citi and UBS, have raised their forecasts for the country's GDP growth in 2023.

JPMorgan increased the outlook to 6.4 percent, compared with a previous forecast of 6 percent, while Citi upgraded its forecast to 6.1 percent from its previous 5.7 percent. UBS said it foresees the growth to be higher at 5.7 percent in 2023, compared with its previous forecast of 5.4 percent.

"China's GDP growth in the first three months came in notably above expectations. ... The strong growth report points to a strong post-epidemic recovery," said Zhu Haibin, chief China economist and head of Greater China Economic Research at JPMorgan.

China's GDP growth rebounded to 4.5 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, after reaching 2.9 percent in the last quarter of 2022, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday.

According to Citi, the underlying momentum could be stronger than the number suggests, given that meaningful recovery perhaps only started after Spring Festival in February.

This year could be a window of opportunity for policymakers to address structural issues, such as weak private confidence, unemployment among young people and local government debt, it said.

Wang Tao, head of Asia economics and chief China economist at UBS, predicted that resumption of services activities in urban areas, especially those of small and medium-sized enterprises, should help support gradual employment and income growth over the course of 2023, as will the release of some excess savings.

In addition, as the economy continues to recover, the effect of eased property policies and lower mortgage rates will continue to come through, supporting further recovery of property activities, she said.

On the back of China's economic recovery, international business leaders have expressed their growing confidence in the Chinese economy.

HSBC Group Chairman Mark Tucker said he believes that China's economy has become even more resilient since the optimization of COVID-19 response measures.

Tucker said he is very bullish on the prospects of the Chinese economy as well as the business opportunities that China is providing to enterprises.

The Chinese economy has been recovering at a fast pace since the beginning of the year, with inflation well under control, he said in Beijing earlier this week at the China Annual Investor Wealth Summit, which was jointly held by HSBC and business and financial news provider CLS.

China will likely account for around one-third of world economic growth this year if the country meets its growth target of 5 percent, which is lower than forecasts of many international institutions, he said.

Michael Blake, CEO for the Asian arm of Union Bancaire Privee, a family-owned private bank and specialist asset manager based in Geneva, Switzerland, said he expects China to provide tremendous opportunities for domestic as well as international investors in many areas, including the automation of manufacturing, artificial intelligence and the next generation of healthcare.

Frank Meng, chairman of Qualcomm China, said the company has always been optimistic about the long-term development of the Chinese economy and will continue to increase investment and expand cooperation in China.

"The number of Qualcomm's employees in China has grown by double digits almost every year since 2018," Meng said, adding that Qualcomm has established joint innovation centers with different partners in various cities, and these are all important parts of Qualcomm's continuous development in China.

Zhang Dawei, vice-chairman and secretary-general of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, suggested that the government take more steps to enhance expectations of private entrepreneurs and better support the development of the private sector.

With that, the rebound momentum of consumption will be well conveyed to the manufacturing industry, especially that in the private sector, he said.

Liu Mengyang, a senior analyst of corporates at Fitch Bohua, a subsidiary of Fitch Ratings, said that she expects infrastructure to remain important to stabilizing growth in China, with railway investment probably speeding up to provide stronger support to the overall economic rebound this year.