Market news in the last few months has been largely positive, but one bright spot is the start of the new year.

That could lead to some more solid gains in the near term, and could be a good time for a big buy, said Scott Breen, senior portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price Asset Management in New York.

Investors who are concerned about a slowdown in China’s economic growth could be ready to look for the first signs of a rebound.

China is likely to overtake the U.S. as the world’s biggest economy by 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund, and the IMF expects China’s gross domestic product to grow at a pace of 5 per cent a year through 2021.

That would be a record, according the IMF, and if China continues on its current path, it will be the world largest economy by 2021.

The IMF expects the Chinese economy to expand by an annual average of 7.6 per cent in the next five years, a faster rate than the U, the US. and the euro area combined.

The pace of growth will be slower than it has been in the past decade.

Breen said it will also be a bigger contributor to GDP growth in the long term, because of the higher share of capital in the Chinese system.

China’s growth rate is projected to be 3.4 per cent for the current year and 3.7 per cent next year, according UBS in London.

Investors may not be able to make a move right away, however, as the Chinese central bank continues to hold back on its interest rate increase and the country’s debt load is expected to remain high.

Still, there is hope that China could soon be making a move to become a net exporter of goods, and that could be good news for Canada.

That is why Breen is buying into some of the stock options of companies like Caterpillar and GE that have a lot of exposure to China.

“The longer-term outlook is good for the Chinese, but it will depend on whether or not there is a recovery and how quickly that happens,” he said.

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