BEIJING (Reuters) -Goldman Sachs has raised its forecast for China’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year to 6% from 5.5% on the back of the country’s rapid reopening, the investment bank said in a note on Wednesday.
Strong recovery in sectors sensitive to the COVID-19 pandemic and broadly improved activity data in the first two months of this year drove the upgraded outlook, Goldman Sachs said in the research note.
China’s economy showed a gradual though uneven recovery in January and February, but statistics bureau spokesman Fu Linghui told a briefing on Wednesday that it would take time to repair corporate and personal balance sheets damaged during the pandemic.
China has set a modest annual growth target of around 5% this year after significantly missing its target for 2022.
Last year, the world’s second-largest economy expanded just 3%, its slowest pace in decades excluding 2020, weighed down by restrictive COVID policies, a deep property slump and weak external demand.
Goldman Sachs also cited improved activity in the real estate sector, which has made new progress in its climb out of a months-long slump, as another reason for its revised forecast.
The investment bank last raised its forecast for China’s 2023 GDP growth in January to 5.5% from a previous estimate of 5.2%.
(Reporting by Ella Cao and Ryan Woo, Writing by Meg ShenEditing by David Goodman, Kirsten Donovan)
