China’s 7pc growth goal ‘never set in stone’

Ahead of the plenum meeting, Prime Minister Li Keqiang admitted the Chinese economy could grow at less than 7% this year. The statements come at a time of growing concern in global financial markets over China’s once mighty economic juggernaut.

China built its first pilot free trade zone (FTZ) in Shanghai in 2013 as a test bed for pushing forward reforms and opening the economy wider. It’s the framework for Xi to fulfil his promise three years ago that by 2020 China would become a “moderately well-off society” – meaning GDP and income per capita would double from 2010 levels.

Private sector forecasters have cut their outlook for China’s growth this year to between 6.5 and 7 percent.

China’s top leadership began a four-day meeting Monday to draw up key economic and social goals, and plan reforms for the next five years.

China’s latest stimulus may be aimed at bolstering the country’s slowing economy.

The new five-year plan, China’s 13th, has henceforth garnered increasing attention from observers both home and overseas.

China is a ticking demographic time bomb and desperately needs more children.

Almost a third of the major measurements in the current five-year plan were related to clean energy, energy conservation and environmental protection, and that trend is likely to continue. It happens to the best of economies and many pundits around the world anxious that there would be a huge drop off, or steep slowdown into a “hard landing”. The new situation is a result of long-term efforts to transform economic growth mode and restructure the economic frame, which will provide more impetus for future development. It is among the seven plenary sessions, known as plenums, that the decision-making Central Committee holds between national party congresses every five years to set policies and personnel changes.

The broader economic strategy of the Beijing government, led by President Xi Jinping, is to rebalance from investment-led and credit-driven growth to household consumption-led growth.

Gen Liu, born in 1951 and touted to head a military graft-busting unit, would have to retire next year if he does not enter the CMC in order to be exempted from the retirement policy.

The Central Committee, the largest of the party’s elite governing bodies with more than 200 full members, is gathering until Thursday to finalize the 13th Five-Year Plan, a blueprint for economic and social development between 2016 and 2020. China could set a sub-7 per cent annual growth target for the first time.

An outline for state industry reform issued in September promises to make government companies more efficient by forcing them to face more free-market competition while retaining the party’s dominance in the economy.