BEIJING, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) – China is likely to realize its annual econmic growth target for 2018 on expected rebounds in the growths of consumption and infrastructure investment in December of 2018.
China's economic growth in the fourth quarter might slow down slightly, but the annual growth might remain around 6.6 to 6.7 percent, reported Shanghai Securities News based on predictions of major research institutions.
Consumption remained the first driving force for China's economic development in the second half of 2018. Many institutions predicted that the growth of consumption in December 2018 might embrace a slight rebound.
The total retail sales of social consumer goods in the month might reach 8.6 percent, 0.5 percentage point higher than that of the previous month, forecast Li Chao, analyst at Huatai Securities.
With the effects of pro-consumption policies and the implementation of favorable measures such as individual income tax reform, China's consumption in 2019 may still enjoy a stable growth and contribute over 75 percent to its economic growth, predicted Lian Ping, chief economist at Bank of Communications (BCM).
Besides, institutions generally believe that the growth of investment in infrastructure construction in December 2018 might stabilize and lead to slight rise of the overall investment growth.
With the accelerated and enhanced improvement of weak links in infrastructure construction, the growth of investment in infrastructure construction might pick up while the investment in manufacturing might remain stable, according to Lian, who also predicted that the year-on-year growth of investment in fixed assets in 2018 might continue to rebound slightly, reaching 6 percent.
Analysts at Shenwan Hongyuan Securities believed that with the enhanced support from fiscal expenditure, the annual growth of investment in infrastructure construction in 2018 might rebound to 5 percent and drive the cumulative growth of fixed asset investment rise slightly to 6.1 percent.
(Edited by Gu Shanshan)
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