China's growth could slip below 6%, as trade war takes toll - analysts

China’s economic growth risks slipping below the lower-end of Beijing 2019 target of 6% in the third quarter or over the next year, analysts warn, but government economists are slightly more optimistic as they expect stimulus to help stave off a sharper slowdown.

Economists believe China’s economic growth likely cooled further this quarter from a near 30-year low of 6.2% in April-June, but they differ on whether the slowing trend could persist despite a raft of government policy measures.

“There is a risk for Q3 GDP to be below 6.0%,” said Zhaopeng Xing, an economist at ANZ.

“But we expect September will see a jump in fixed-asset investment because many gift projects for 70th anniversary will be confirmed to be in the statistics at the quarter end. So we maintain our forecast of Q3 GDP 6.1%,” he told Reuters.

UBS expects China’s economic growth to slow to 5.5% in 2020 from expected pace of 6.0% in 2019. Growth will slow further in the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020 due to the impact from higher U.S. tariffs, UBS’s China economist Tao Wang said.

Beijing is targeting 6%-6.5% growth for 2019, and government analysts expect the stimulus measures will prop-up the economy.