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Goldman Sachs has lowered its full-year projections for China's economic growth to 4.7 percent after the world's second-largest economy's industrial output slowed to a five-month low in August. It maintained the country's 2025 GDP growth forecast at 4.3 percent.

The US bank expects a growing risk that the economy fails to meet its 5 percent GDP growth target this year, and urges to ramp up demand-side stimulus measures.

In addition, Hong Kong banks see rising non-performing loans caused by the city's commercial real estate, with Hang Seng Bank (0011) NPL ratio hitting a 30-year high in the first half of the year, according to Goldman Sachs.

It estimates that the NPL ratio will soar to 39 percent if the earnings before interest and taxes of CRE companies record a 50 percent plunge.

The EBIT saw a year-on-year decline, reaching 25 to 30 percent in the first half of this year, according to the bank's statistics.

Citigroup also trimmed the forecast to 4.7 percent due to the country's underperformance in August and slowing demand harming supply.

It reported a 4.2 percent estimate for China in 2025, down from 4.5 percent.

"We believe fiscal policy needs to step up so as to break the austerity trap and timely deploy growth support," said economists at Citigroup.

Morgan Stanley cut its forecast on China's economic growth this year to 4.6 percent for 2024, compared with an initial estimate of 4.8 percent, as well as lowering the forecast for 2025 to 4.2 percent.

It cited falling consumer demand amid a deflationa

US banks lower China forecasts