IMF projects China's economy to grow 5.2 pct in 2023, 'key contributor' to global growth

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected on Tuesday that China's economy will grow 5.2 percent in 2023 and 4.5 percent in 2024.

"We're projecting (for China) 5.2 percent growth in 2023. That's up from 3 percent last year," Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, director of the Research Department of the IMF, told a press briefing Tuesday on the latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) report.

Given the size of the Chinese economy, that would be a key contributor to global growth in the coming year, Gourinchas said, adding that it is "one of the great (pieces of) news for 2023" that China's economy is seeing a rapid reopening with a strong rebound.

"As COVID-19 waves subsided (in China) in January of this year, mobility normalized, and high-frequency economic indicators, such as retail sales and travel bookings, started picking up," said the IMF in the WEO report.

"The reopening and growth of its economy will likely generate positive spillovers, with even greater spillovers for countries with stronger trade links and reliance on Chinese tourism," it added.

According to the IMF forecast, the world economy will grow 2.8 percent in 2023, 0.1 percentage point lower than its January forecast.

"A return of the world economy to the pace of economic growth that prevailed before the bevy of shocks in 2022 and the recent financial sector turmoil is increasingly elusive," said the IMF.

Global growth is estimated at 3.4 percent in 2022, to fall to 2.8 percent in 2023, before rising to 3 percent in 2024, it added.

The growth of advanced economies will decline by half in 2023 to 1.3 percent, before rising to 1.4 percent in 2024, said the IMF.

"About 90 percent of advanced economies are projected to see a decline in growth in 2023," it said.

"With the sharp slowdown, advanced economies are expected to see higher unemployment, a rise of 0.5 percentage point on average from 2022 to 2024," said the IMF.

China and India are "two exceptions to the slowdown" that the global economy is expected to experience this year, said World Bank Group President David Malpass in a media call ahead of the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings week.

"India and China are expected to account for half of global growth in 2023. But others face a steeper climb," said Managing Director of the IMF Kristalina Georgieva at a recent event in Washington D.C.