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China's economic recovery
EconomyChina Economy

IMF keeps China’s 2024 GDP growth estimate unchanged on ‘troubled property sector’

  • Following the release of China’s first-quarter gross domestic product growth, International Monetary Fund flags the lack of a ‘comprehensive response’
  • Washington-based organisation also raises its forecast for America’s GDP growth this year, as well as India’s

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Residential buildings developed by China Evergrande Group in Hebei province have gone unfinished as a property crisis roils the market. Photo: Reuters
Ralph Jennings
Even after Beijing reported a better-than-expected rise in China’s quarterly economic growth, the International Monetary Fund opted to keep its full-year expectations unchanged for the country.
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In maintaining its presumption that China’s gross domestic product will increase by 4.6 per cent in 2024 – below Beijing’s 5 per cent target – the IMF on Tuesday pointed to persistent concerns over an enduring property market slump.

Meanwhile, this year’s growth estimate for the US economy was revised up by the Washington-based fund, to 2.7 per cent – a 0.6 percentage point increase from its January guess. And India’s GDP growth forecast was also elevated to 6.8 per cent, up 0.3 percentage points.

“Without a comprehensive response to the troubled property sector, [China’s] growth could falter, hurting trading partners,” the IMF said in its flagship publication, the “World Economic Outlook”.

“A larger and more prolonged drop in real estate investment could occur, accompanied by expectations of future house prices declining, reduced housing demand, and a further weakening in household confidence and spending, with implications for global growth,” it explained.

The warning came at a time when the property market, which the IMF has said used to account for as much as 20 per cent of the nation’s economic activity, continued to drag the recovery.

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