NEW YORK, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- Global financial institutions, including JP Morgan, Citigroup and UBS, on Wednesday raised their 2023 growth forecasts for China after the country's economy expanded at a faster-than-expected pace in the third quarter.

Citigroup expects China's gross domestic product (GDP) to grow 5.3 percent in 2023 from 5 percent earlier, Reuters reported.

JP Morgan forecasts China's economy to expand 5.2 percent this year, up from the previous 5 percent estimate, while Morgan Stanley lifts the growth forecast to 5.1 percent from 4.8 percent to 4.9 percent earlier.

UBS, the Swiss banking giant, has raised its estimate to 5.2 percent, 0.4 percentage points up from earlier.

Nomura, a Japan-based financial services group, has upgraded China's 2023 year-on-year growth forecast to 5.1 percent versus 4.8 percent prior, the company said in a note on Wednesday.

A new energy vehicle is on display during the 23rd China International Fair for Investment and Trade in Xiamen, southeast China's Fujian Province, Sept. 8, 2023. (Xinhua/Lin Shanchuan)

Though Goldman Sachs slightly cut its forecast to 5.3 percent from 5.4 percent, it's still higher than China's official target of a 5 percent growth for the year, Reuters said.

China's GDP grew 5.2 percent year on year in the first three quarters of 2023, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Wednesday.

In the third quarter of 2023, the country's GDP expanded 4.9 percent year on year, beating analysts' expectations of a 4.4-percent increase.

"Like August, September monthly activity came in stronger than expected. This is encouraging," JP Morgan economist Haibin Zhu told Reuters.

JP Morgan has expected that China's economic momentum to persist in the coming months.