Wilbur Ross Points To China As Almost Ready For Western Investment

Billionaire investor and WL Ross & Co. LLC (Invesco Institutional) CEO and chairman Wilbur Ross Jr. appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box, where he discussed China's GDP and why he's confident that it's almost time for more outside investors to come into the emerging market.

“I think China is getting very close to the point where one should be making more commitments to it. I think it's true that they're slowing down, but by global standards, they're doing very, very well and I think they'll grow something in excess of 6 percent,” said Ross, going on to say that he agrees that China's banking crisis has been “overblown” by media.

Despite uncertainty in China's banking system, Ross sees it as possibly being the next big market to turn around. Famous for aiding in the reconstructing of economically stressed companies in industries from all around the world, Ross has a strong sense of the numbers needed to grow aggressively.

Ross noted that the the Chinese Central Government controls most of the country's banks and equities, and has the necessary resources for dealing with its problems within the banking system. He thinks China's GDP could even go as high as 7 percent, but maintains that he's never thought it would hit 8 percent or higher like other analysts have suggested.

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“By 2015, China will be a lot further along toward the path of consumer driving the economy rather than just exports and investment, which has been the big driver in the past,” said Ross.

“I don't think it should be too surprising that it's not a seamless movement away from one set of dynamics in your economy into a fairly different one. I think you'll have to assume there's going to be some little rough points in between, but for any big economy, anything two-thirds of six percent would be regarded as a herculean achievement.”

His instincts say that it's a bit too early for Westerners to invest, but according to Ross “it's getting very close to that point.”

Ross also highlighted that selectivity will be more important “than just being long” for this year. In general, he thinks that 2014 is the year for individual securities in the United States and abroad, as opposed to 2013, which he considered a year of “market of markets,” with an emphasis on doing well in long investments.

Jason Cunningham had no position with the mentioned entities while writing this article. Visit Jason on Twitter at @JasonCunningham and @Benzinga.