(Yicai) March 7 -- Confidence in China's economy improved this month, as with the convening of the Two Sessions, the country's key annual policy setting meetings, economists surveyed by Yicai expect China's monetary policy to remain accommodative and its fiscal policy to become more proactive.

The Yicai Chief Economists Confidence Index rose to 50.54 in March from 50.04 in February, the poll of leading China-based economists showed yesterday. A reading above 50 indicates an optimistic outlook on China's economy.

The Two Sessions are the annual plenary meetings of the National People's Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. The government work report released during the Two Sessions set the country’s gross domestic product growth target at around 5 percent.

The Chinese economy is expected to maintain moderate growth, said Wang Han, chief economist at Industrial Securities. Under policy support, the new development momentum of the economy will continue to enhance, the real estate sector will rebound, and infrastructure investment will maintain a relatively high growth rate, he added.

China's 2024 Government Work Report proposed intensifying fiscal policies and set the deficit ratio at around 3 percent of the gross domestic product. The deficit scale is expected to increase by CNY180 billion (USD25 billion) to CNY4.06 trillion (USD564 billion), and the quota for local government special bonds will expand by CNY100 billion to CNY3.9 trillion this year from the previous one.

The economists predicted that China's consumer price index grew 0.3 percent last month from a year earlier, reversing the decline in January. They expect the producer price index to have fallen 2.46 percent in the period, with the decline narrowing 0.04 percentage point from the previous month.

The CPI likely increased in February because of the expanded consumption during the Chinese New Year holiday, said Zheng Houcheng, chief macroeconomist at Yingda Securities. Pork prices rose last month from January, and the strong demand for travel during the holiday supported fuel prices, Zheng noted.

Retail sales of consumer goods probably rose 5.73 percent in the first two months of the year from a year earlier, according to the economists. The average growth forecasts for industrial added value, fixed asset investment, imports, and exports were 5.11 percent, 3.11 percent, 2.42 percent, and 3.53 percent, respectively, in the period.

China's trade surplus is expected to have reached USD85.4 billion in the two months ended Feb. 29, the economists predicted.

The National Bureau of Statistics will release the major economic data for January and February together to eliminate the impact of the Chinese New Year holiday, which can fall in either of the two months, depending on the year.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione