China’s 2023 GDP forecasts twisted and turned as prognosticators puzzled over country’s future

At the start of the year, there was a lot of hope that China's economy would bounce back in a big way. But as the year went on, experts started to have doubts. Big financial organizations kept changing their predictions about how much China's economy would grow. They were worried about things like people not having jobs and the housing market not doing well.

Experts say it's tough to make accurate predictions, but it's been especially hard for China lately. The country is dealing with changes after the pandemic, and the housing market isn't doing great. This uncertainty is making people nervous about spending money. The government is trying to fix things, but they're taking it step by step, which means the economy might look bad, then get a little better, then worse, and so on.

Back in 2019, most people thought China's economy would grow by around 6. 3%, and it almost did. But this year, the International Monetary Fund started by thinking it would grow by 5. 2%, then they changed it to 5%, and now they're saying 5. 4% because China is going to spend a lot of money to help local governments. The Economist Intelligence Unit also changed their prediction to 5. 5% after China said it would spend more on big building projects. But they're not sure what will happen next year. They're waiting to see if China will spend more money and if the Chinese bank will make it easier to borrow money. DBS Bank thinks China will grow by 5% this year, but things might get better because they're investing in new industries and trying to make people feel good about spending their money again.