J.P. Morgan Chase & Co on Tuesday forecast that China's economy will expand 6.7 percent in 2017, higher than the government's official target.
During a press conference in Beijing, Ulrich Li Jing, vice chairman of Asia-Pacific at J.P. Morgan, highlighted the positive role that consumption would play in boosting China's economy in the second half of the year.
China is catching up with the U.S. retail market, said Li, giving e-commerce as an example. She noted that the e-commerce market in China is growing at twice the rate in the U.S.
Booming Internet finance is another contributor to the growing and stable GDP in the world's second-largest economy. J.P. Morgan forecast that China's Internet finance sector may be worth 460 billion yuan ($67.72 billion) by 2020, and the market will be dominated by Internet companies.
Those predictions came amid the U.S. leading bank and financial service provider holding its 13th annual Global China Summit in Beijing.
The three-day event, which started on Monday, attracted more than 2,200 delegates from 50 countries and regions, including J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, China's Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao and former British prime minister Tony Blair.
The summit participants did not appear to be so worried about China's economy this year as they were in 2016, and their concerns this year mainly focused on the overseas markets, according to Li.
China's economy made a good start this year with first-quarter GDP growing 6.9 percent, marking the strongest quarterly performance since the third quarter of 2015.
But, there are still latent risks in the country's real estate sector, Li said, noting policy uncertainties will affect investment in property and economic growth, as real estate accounts for up to 13 percent of the GDP.
