May 7 (Bloomberg) -- China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, expects the nation’s oil-product demand to grow at 0.6 to 0.7 times that of the gain in gross domestic product, said Zheng Baomin, director of investor relations.

The government has forecast GDP to expand 8 percent in 2009, Zheng said at a conference today in Singapore. This equates to China’s oil-product demand growing between 4.8 percent and 5.6 percent this year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on Zheng’s speech.

“China’s oil demand will be in positive territory this year,” said Francisco Blanch, managing director and head of global commodity research, at Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit. “China’s injecting so much money in the economy and there’s a push to hand it out to consumers and businesses.”

China’s oil products consumption rose 11.9 percent to 215 million tons in 2008, according to the China Petroleum & Chemical Association. Consumption of oil products slumped in the first quarter of this year by about 8.7 percent from a year- earlier period as the global recession reduced demand in developed economies for toys and textiles.

Zheng said China Petroleum & Chemical, known as Sinopec, has seen signs that the decline in oil-product demand is slowing. Chinese oil product demand fell 16.5 percent in January, 8.1 percent in February and 2.7 percent in March.

Chinese consumers, who four years ago bought a fifth as many cars as the U.S., purchased more automobiles early this year, Blanch said.

Shares of Sinopec were trading 2.8 percent lower at HK$6.26 at 11:42 a.m. in Hong Kong, having earlier gained as much as 3.7 percent to HK$6.68.

To contact the reporter on this story: Dinakar Sethuraman in Singapore at dinakar@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 6, 2009 23:51 EDT