Investors are expecting a bottoming out for Asian economies in the next few months, boosting recent gains in regional markets including those in China, a J.P. Morgan Chase executive said Tuesday.
That comes as Beijing recently took policy measures — such as fast-tracking infrastructure projects and cutting taxes and banks’ reserve requirements — to boost growth.
“Even though, so far, the results have not been extremely apparent, but in the next several months I think these measures will begin to bear fruit,” said Jing Ulrich, managing director and vice chairman for Asia Pacific at J.P. Morgan Chase.
Equity market investors are looking ahead for more positive news, said Ulrich, with Beijing’s stimulus measures set to have a more pronounced impact on corporate earnings in May and June.
Indeed, many global investors who have been underweight on China — due to a host of concerns including high debt levels, slowing growth and bond defaults — are now coming back into the market because of its lower valuations compared to a few years ago, Ulrich told CNBC.
The Shanghai composite has jumped more than 10 percent so far in 2019.
Global institutional investors are looking at fast-growth industries such as technology, new energy vehicles, artificial intelligence and the internet, said Ulrich.
“These areas are very resilient despite a slowdown in the general economy,” she said.
Also driving investment is personal consumption growing at a “very healthy” clip even amid a slowdown in Chinese GDP growth, she said.
Ulrich tipped areas such as health care and education as standout industries for investment even in the current state of the global economy.
“Technology, consumption will be performing much better compared to the old economy counterparts where you have over-capacity and over-leverage,” she said.
—Reuters contributed to this report.
