Overseas institutes, experts upbeat about Chinese economic prospect

BEIJING - Overseas institutes and experts lately conveyed their optimism about the prospect of the Chinese economy, saying the Asian country will sustain stable and upbeat growth momentum thanks to its continuous supply-side structural reforms, booming domestic consumption and flourishing service industry.

The Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) said in a report published on Nov 18 that there remains colossal policy space for China to achieve stable economic development, and its annual GDP growth rate in 2016 is expected to rebounce to 6.8 percent.

The SCB said that besides the official regulation, other factors that contribute to China's steady growth include the flourishing domestic consumption, the net export in the second half of this year, the stable increases in the service industry and industrial added value, and the rising confidence of small and medium-sized businesses and manufacturers.

The bank added that keeping stable growth with ample policy instruments will prop up the Chinese economic prospect in the upcoming years.

According to a report released on Nov 23 by the HSBC, China's recent policies on regulating the property market will not hinder the nation's economic recovery and GDP rebounding.

The HSBC noted that the regulations' impact on the economic growth will be offset by the marginal increases of the infrastructural construction investments supported by national fiscal expansion.

The bank predicted that in the forthcoming seasons, China's GDP performance will continue to pick up thanks to the ever increasing optimism of private investments, the overall recovery of domestic demand and the advancing supply-side reforms.

The National Australia Bank also said on Nov 18 that China's current economic performance is satisfactory and will not be met with a "hard landing," as its thriving third industry has exceeded in size the traditional industries and become the major powerhouse of the Chinese economy.

In a report issued on Nov 22, Moody's heralded a robust growth of the Chinese economy in 2017.

The rating agency explained that the stimulus included the ever stabling international commodity prices, the mild increase in demand for the Chinese construction companies due to the expanding infrastructure construction projects in and out of the country, and the enhancing liquidity of the Chinese IT companies as a result of their new products and services.

Another US rating institute Fitch also echoed the pervasive optimism about the Chinese economy by raising its expectation for China's growth rate in 2016 from 6.5 percent to 6.7 percent, and 6.3 percent to 6.4 percent in 2017.

Xie Dongming, an analyst with the Singaporean banking institution OCBC, said that thanks to the easy monetary policy and mounting stimulus released by the Chinese government, the market's confidence in the prospect of the Chinese economy is rising, no matter whether in terms of demand or supply.

For his part, Andrei Ostrovsky, deputy director of the Far East Research Institute of Russia's Academy of Sciences, told Xinhua that China's reform and opening up policy has achieved enormous success despite remaining problems such as the development gaps between different regions and industries.

Alexey Maslov, a professor at the Russian Higher School of Economics Research University, also said that the slowdown of China's growth is normal for an economy that has maintained rapid development for over 15 years.

"China is reforming its fundamental economic structure as it has rolled out a series of actions to deepen reform and opening up in less than a year," Maslov noted.

He suggested that China shall introduce comprehensive reforms of its taxation system and promote the "go globe" strategy to advance its domestic market.