(ECNS) -- China’s official economic growth target of around 5 percent for 2023 shows its confidence in economic recovery, foreign media said as the annual meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People's Congress (NPC) got underway.

　　“This growth target, while modest from the perspective of recent decades but moderately ambitious relative to last year, indicates the return of growth as the lodestar for economic and financial policies,” Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University economist, told the New York Times.

　　Financial Times says that China’s economy has shown signs of recovery from the downturn, with sentiment in the manufacturing sector hitting a decade high in February.

　　“I think on the whole the report is geared towards reassuring foreign investors that China is still a good place to do business and so forth,” Willy Lam, an expert in Chinese politics at the Jamestown Foundation think-tank in Washington, told Financial Times.

　　The U.S. media outlet CNN said that the impact of Covid infections in December on China’s economy started to fade away in January, and the economic recovery picked up pace last month.

　　“Official data released Wednesday showed China’s factories had their best month in nearly 11 years in February, underscoring how quickly economic activity has bounced back following the end of the Covid exit wave. The services and construction industries also had their best performance in two years,” CNN said in a report on Sunday.

　　In addition, the International Monetary Fund revised upwards China’s 2023 growth outlook to 5.2 percent on Friday. It said that the Chinese economy is now expected to contribute a third of global growth this year.