Amid worries over China’s economy, one expert tells CNBC that the slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy is “entirely natural.”
In fact, J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s Alexander Treves told CNBC there’s a bright spot for investors: the ability to invest in Chinese companies.
“I think we need to get used to a world in which … the GDP growth we see from China isn’t the sort of growth that we used to see 10 or 15 years ago,” Alexander Treves, investment specialist in emerging markets and Asia-Pacific equities at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” on Tuesday.
China announced at a closely watched annual meeting of its parliament that the country’s economic growth target for 2019 would be set between 6.0 and 6.5 percent in 2019. That’s lower than last year’s 6.6 percent expansion, which was also its slowest pace since 1990.
“That’s entirely natural as any economy develops,” Treves said. “What we care more about as equity investors is the quality of the growth, so the sustainability and this has been a consistent policy theme over the last couple of years.”
With China’s push to open up its financial markets to foreign investors and firms, Treves said one of the “key reasons” behind why J.P. Morgan was “so excited” about the country, was the ability to invest in companies on the mainland.
“We can find more of these sorts of innovative private sector style companies onshore than offshore, and these are making their way into our portfolios around the region,” he said.
Treves did, however, caution that not every valuation was “equally reasonable,” and not all management teams were “robust” with a a good strategy.
Beijing has said it wants to open up its financial sector to more foreign investment, and has taken steps to increase overseas participation in domestic markets and financial businesses.
There’s also positive developments on other fronts. Last week, global index provider MSCI announced it will substantially increase the weighting of mainland China shares in its benchmarks, paving the way for billions of fresh foreign inflows into China’s economy.
On potential sectors to invest in, Treves said companies with less downside risk, such as travel and dairy products, would be a good choice.
“These are things which will grow for many, many years to come,” he said.
