Business / Economy

World Bank pares 2014 outlook

By Chen Jia (China Daily) Updated: 2014-04-08 07:33

Now economists are looking to the next round of statistics. The National Bureau of Statistics is scheduled to release figures on consumer and producer prices on Friday.

China's GDP growth target for 2014 set at 7.5 percent

Infographic: Five key words from Li's govt report

First-quarter GDP data are due on April 16.

"We expect the upcoming March data to show a modest sequential recovery of economic activity, which may only partly offset particularly weak start in January and February," said Wang Tao, chief economist in China at UBS AG. The bank has estimated that GDP growth in the first quarter probably softened to 7.4 percent from 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter last year.

"Looking ahead, we expect growth momentum to rebound more visibly in the second quarter, on the back of reduced policy uncertainties after the annual session of the National People's Congress in March, an acceleration of ongoing construction and investment and the launch of new projects already approved in the government's budget and economic agenda," said Wang.

Analysts expect additional pro-growth measures will accompany the acceleration of structural reforms in the coming months.

The most likely step is fiscal stimulus, they said. In January and February, the Ministry of Finance reported a fiscal surplus of 786 billion yuan ($125 billion). The government has room to increase expenditure in the coming months, because the full-year budget deficit target is 1.35 trillion yuan.

On the monetary front, Zhu Haibin, chief economist in China at JPMorgan Chase & Co, said that the People's Bank of China, the central bank, will maintain neutral monetary and credit policies but with some fine-tuning to support growth.