China's GDP Growth Last Month Will Match Government Forecast, Yicai Chief Economists Survey Shows
He Xiao
DATE:  Mar 07 2018
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
China's GDP Growth Last Month Will Match Government Forecast, Yicai Chief Economists Survey Shows China's GDP Growth Last Month Will Match Government Forecast, Yicai Chief Economists Survey Shows

(Yicai Global) March 7 -- China's economy is set to expand in line with the government work report this year, according to chief economists surveyed by Yicai Global, who believe gross domestic product will grow by 6.5 percent.

Almost 80 percent of economists surveyed gave expectations in line with the 2018 work report, which has kept its GDP growth target unchanged from 2017 despite passing the goal by 0.4 percentage points.

Key takeaway forecasts from the survey compared with actual figures:

The Yicai Chief Economist Confidence Index was 50.38, marking 19 straight months of anticipated expansion.

The consumer price index in February was 2.46 percent, up 0.96 point from January.

The producer price index in February was 3.75 percent, down 0.55 from January.

The growth rate for total retail sales of consumer goods over the first two months was 9.82 percent, up 0.32 point on the year.

The growth rate of industrial added value over the first two months was 6.14 percent, down 0.16 point on the year.

The growth rate of fixed asset investment over the first two months was 6.97 percent, down 1.93 point on the year.

The growth rate of investment in real estate development over the first two months was 5.55 percent, down 3.35 on the year.

Import growth rate in February was lower than the 8.9 percent in January, affected by the Chinese New Year holiday.

Export growth was 15.2 percent in February, up 4.1 points from January.

China had a trade deficit of USD38 million in February, after a USD20 million surplus in January.

New loans fell to CNY850 billion (USD134 billion) in February after hitting CNY2.9 trillion in January.

Total social financing was CNY1.1 trillion in February, down from CNY3 trillion in January.

M2 growth fell to 8.57 percent from 8.6 percent in January.

The 18 economists believe that the benchmark rates on deposits and loans and the reserve requirement ratio would remain unchanged by the end of March.

Foreign exchange reserves in February will be around CNY4 billion higher than January.

The value of the yuan against the dollar will fall to 6.36 by the end of March, compared with 6.33 at the end of February.

The yuan-dollar central parity rate will be revised to 6.47 from 6.45 at the end of the year.

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Keywords:   Survey,GDP,CPI,Yuan