Citigroup: China’s economy is recovering worse than expected

Analysts of the American bank Citigroup quoted by the TV channel CNBCbelieve that economic activity in China is recovering more slowly than previously expected.

“We expect first-quarter corporate results to be rather weak as the post-COVID recovery will take longer than previously forecast,” Citi economists said.

In their opinion, Chinese corporate reports for 2022 showed that companies in general show results weaker than analysts expected from them. Another negative indicator Citi considers the results of sales of e-commerce leaders Alibaba and JD.com, which showed rather restrained consumer activity.

Such findings forced Citi to revise its own forecast for the dynamics of the Hong Kong stock exchange index Hang Seng: if they previously believed that the index would reach 24,000 points in June, now they have moved their forecast to the end of September. As a result of today’s trading, the Hang Seng index closed at around 20,300 points. Since the beginning of the year, this index has grown by only 2%.

Read more about the economic activity of the PRC – in the material “Kommersant” “The Chinese economy is tired of recovering“.

Evgeniy Khvostik