Jun Ma, the bank's chief economist of Greater China and Head of Macro Strategy for China and Hong Kong, said China's economic growth for 2007 is likely to stay at par to 2006, which stood at 10.7 percent.

He explained that China's investment activities in the first half of 2007 are estimated to rebound, the deceleration in export growth is slower than expected, and companies profitability growth remains strong.

"We believe construction materials, machinery and services are direct beneficiaries of China's strong infrastructure spending growth in the expressway, railway and subway sectors in the coming years, he told reporters on the sidelines of its ongoing annual Access China Conference in Beijing.

"Moreover, the health care sector - medical equipment and device sector - will be the most significant beneficiary from the government's initiative to provide universal health care for the aging population."

"We believe the H-share index is likely to rise 15 percent or more by the end of the year", he said.

H-shares are securities issued by companies from the Chinese mainland but traded on the Hong Kong stock market.

Despite a positive view of earnings outlook in the medium-long run, Ma warned that market correction is likely in the coming months for the mainland stock markets.

"We anticipate regulators may tighten liquidity control, raise interest rates and issue risk warning to contain inflation, suppress over-heated A-shares market," he said.

Those and other measures would affect short-term investment sentiment, he said.

He warned that worse-than-expected US economic figures for the first quarter of this year, geo-political risks in the Middle East and elsewhere and a sharp volatility of the international foreign exchange markets may trigger correction in the global emerging markets.

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