China's economy is bouncing back: WSJ

NEW YORK -- As much of the world struggles to contain the coronavirus, China's recovery is gaining momentum, positioning it to further close its gap with the US economy, according to an article, "China's Economy, Bouncing Back, Gains on the US," published on The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

According to the article, China is the only major economy expected to grow this year. JP Morgan recently boosted its 2020 China growth forecast to 2.5 percent from 1.3 percent in April. Economists at the World Bank and elsewhere have also upgraded their forecasts for China.

China, the world's second-largest economy in real GDP terms, has slowly been catching up on the United States. Economists say China's quick rebound from COVID-19 will accelerate that process, the article said.

Homi Kharas, a senior global economics and development fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the coronavirus puts China's economy on track to reach parity with the US in 2028 in absolute terms, using current dollars, two years faster than his pre-coronavirus estimate, according to the article.

"China will emerge even stronger as the largest economy in the developing world," the article quoted Kharas as saying.

According to the article, China's factories were among the world's first to reopen in April, which helped China grab market share in global trade.

Companies from Marriott International Inc to Starbucks Corp reported strong second-quarter growth in China, as the rest of the world pulled back.

The article added that before the coronavirus, Deutsche Bank estimated China's economy would grow by roughly 26 percent between 2019 and 2023, versus 8.5 percent for the United States over the same period. Now, taking into account the impact of the pandemic, the bank expects China's economic expansion to moderate slightly to 24 percent between 2019 and 2023, while the US over that stretch will have grown by 3.9 percent - less than half the original projection.

Yet, China still faces headwinds. It counts on exports for roughly one-fifth of its economic output, making it reliant on customers in the US and Europe overcoming the virus. It must also prevent its own resurgence in COVID-19 cases, the article said.