China 2024 GDP forecasts by JPMorgan, Goldman, Citi, Morgan Stanley

BEIJING — Major international investment banks expect China’s economy to grow at a slower pace in 2024 than in 2023, according to annual forecasts released in the last few months.

The average prediction among five firms, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, pointed to a 4.6% increase in real GDP this year, down from 5.2% expected for 2023.

China was due Wednesday to release GDP figures for 2023, and previously announced an official target of around 5% growth for the year. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, Premier Li Qiang said the Chinese economy grew by around 5.2% last year.

Beijing is set to reveal this year’s target at an annual parliamentary meeting in early March.

Among the five bank forecasts CNBC looked at, JPMorgan had the highest at 4.9%, while Morgan Stanley had the lowest at 4.2%.

“An important task in 2024 is to manage the downside risk in the economy, particularly from the housing market correction and its spillover risks,” JPMorgan’s Chief China Economist and Head of Greater China Economic Research Haibin Zhu and a team said in a report earlier this month.

“Deflation pressure will likely fade in 2024, with the turnaround in global commodity prices and domestic pork prices, but low inflation will stay along with insufficient domestic demand,“ the analysts said, noting that new tech and other sectors have grown rapidly, but not enough to offset housing and other drags on growth.

The world’s second-largest economy has slowed from the double-digit growth of past decades, weighed down during the pandemic by Covid-19 restrictions and, more recently, a slump in…