As the Chinese New Year approaches, we can expect the debate over China’s economic prospects to flare up again. One industry figure, Andrew Beal, manager of the Henderson TR Pacific Investment Trust, has weighed in early to pour scorn on predictions that the Chinese economy and stock market represent a bubble which is set for collapse.

Beal concedes that the Chinese authorities face several challenges in the short term, but he believes that there is time enough for policymakers to address these while pressing ahead with structural reforms needed to safeguard Chinese growth in the long term.

Looking at the stock market, Beal notes in particular that Hong Kong-listed equities have performed poorly over the past 12 months, despite attractive earnings growth, and so Henderson is still finding strong companies at attractive valuations which are poised to tap into China’s long-term growth prospects.

One Chinese trend highlighted by Beal is the exponential growth of social media, of which he says online gaming is rapidly becoming a huge part. Off the back of this trend Beal has singled out the online media company Sina.com as having particularly attractive growth prospects as it occupies an important niche in sports, entertainment and popular current affairs content. According to Beal, such content continues to draw significant traffic to the firm’s website – with it enjoying concomitant advertising revenues.

More importantly, however, is Sina’s latest offering, Weibo, which is the largest micro-blogging site in China and has grown in less than a year to over 50 million subscribers. “Growth in internet penetration in China and Sina’s unique offering will provide substantial further growth opportunities over the next few years,” says Beal.

For investors looking to tap into the growth in the Chinese gambling sector, Beal recommends investors take a look at the resort company Sands China.

“Sands China operates the largest gaming resort in Macau, the only Chinese territory where gambling is legal. The market grew 60 per cent in 2010, lifting all the listed casino players. Sands’ strategy is to target the mass market resort and conference sectors, the opening of 6,000 new hotel rooms in 2012 should ensure significant market share gains and sustain growth even as overall the market slows,” Beal concludes.