China's gross domestic product growth in the first quarter slowed to 6.1% from a year earlier.  But Yi Gang, a vice governor of the People's Bank of China, expressed confidence that the whole year GDP would turn out to be close to the official target of 8%.

After China's Q1 GDP release, UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays Capital all raised their forecasts for China's whole year GDP.  On Wednesday, Goldman marked up its projection for GDP growth this year to 8.3%.  On Thursday, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) also projected that Chinese economy will grow 8.3 percent this year.

"Since there is a decline in exports, economic growth will mainly depend on consumption and investment. We expect consumption to contribute 4.3 percentage points to GDP growth, while investment may contribute 2 percentage points," CASS said.  

By contrast, Standard Chartered Bank on Wednesday reiterated its forecast of 6.8% growth this year.  IMF forecast that China's GDP will be 6.7% tihis year.  A prominent state economist also cautioned that a recovery won't solidify in the short term due to weak external demand and obsolete production facilities that might take years to phase out.