The International Monetary Fund has reduced its growth forecast for the Chinese economy next year from 7.3 per cent to 7 per cent or lower, amid concerns about a slowdown in the property market and a build-up of credit.
Prices are falling in China’s property sector but the longer-term prospects remain good, David Lipton, the number two official at the IMF, said in Beijing yesterday. “There has been some overheating and the inventory of unsold houses, unsold floorspace, the inventory of unoccupied dwellings has risen.
“It may well be there is a cyclical period where there are adjustments from this overheating. But we know also from international experience that once corrections take place there can be a resumption.”