No new stimulus in China, but investors remain hopeful

The much anticipated annual meeting of China's National People's Congress (NPC) began yesterday. In the run-up to the nine-day meeting, hopes were high that China would announce more stimulus measures, propelling the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index to its sharpest gain in nearly four months on Wednesday. Contrary to expectations, however, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao did not announce new stimulus measures when he addressed the NPC yesterday. He said China's official GDP growth forec…