January 31, 2023
BEIJING – China’s consumption witnessed a strong rebound during the just-completed Spring Festival holiday, with its sales revenue of consumption-related sectors having increased 12.2 percent from the same period last year. The country’s box office generated revenue of 6.76 billion yuan ($1 billion), the second highest revenue during the Spring Festival period, according to a Xinhua report.
Multiple international investment banks and financial institutions have upgraded their forecast for China’s economic growth rate in 2023, thanks to the country’s reopening policies, rosy statistics, as well as the strong performances during the just-concluded holiday.
In a recently published research note, economists at Morgan Stanley raised their GDP forecast for China to 5.7 percent in 2023, an increase of 0.3 percentage points from earlier forecasts, according to a Reuters report.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc upgraded its forecast for China’s gross domestic product growth this year after the government reported stronger-than-expected economic data and the recovery gathers pace.
The bank’s economists are now projecting the economy will expand 5.5 percent this year, up from 5.2 percent previously, Bloomberg reported, citing a recent note from the bank.
Investment banks such as HSBC, Barclays and Natixis have also upwardly revised their forecasts for China’s economic growth rate, said Xinhua.
The United Nations painted a gloomy and uncertain forecast that global economic growth will fall significantly to 1.9 percent this year. However, it forecast that China’s economy will accelerate to 4.8 percent in 2023, far more than the 3 percent in 2022, thanks to the country’s adjusted pandemic prevention and control measures and monetary and fiscal policies, The Washington Post reported.