Chinese Communist Party kicks off 5th plenum focused on economy

China should set a target range – rather than a specific number – for economic growth, a few analysts said, as the Communist Party elite opened a key meeting in Beijing yesterday to plot a blueprint for social and economic development.

The ruling party’s legitimacy depends on projecting an aura of ultra-competence, but growth fell to its lowest since the global financial crisis in the third quarter, according to official figures.

Wang Jun, a researcher at the China Center for global Economic Exchanges, a think tank in Beijing, said a growth target between 6.5 and 7 percent for 2016-20 is needed to achieve the goal of doubling GDP and per capita income from the 2010 levels by 2020.

Dr Wang Xiaolu, deputy director of the National Economic Research Institute in Beijing, said it is clear the growth target in the Five-Year Plan would be lower, given weakness in the economy.

“The hard work of people up and down the country and the enormous potential of China’s economy gives us more confidence that we can overcome the various difficulties”.

China issued the air pollution control action plan in 2013 and water pollution action plan this year and declared war on pollution in March.

Numerous personnel switches are linked to a widespread anti-corruption drive under President Xi Jinping, which critics have compared to a political purge.

He added: “Particular attention will be paid to how exactly the authorities intend to promote China’s “new” economic industries – technology, healthcare, media and communications – at the expense of the “older” more traditional industries of steel, shipbuilding and coal”.

And ultimately, 6.9 percent grow is still faster than most countries in the world, as GDP growth in the major economies are under 3 percent.

A couple of days after the figures were announced, China cut its one-year benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.35%, and also reduced the ratio of Chinese currency it expects the country’s banks to hold, in a bid to boost growth and hit targets.

A WeChat account of Beijing’s Party organ newspaper, the Beijing Daily, revealed that a total of 104 out of the 205 CPC Central Committee members have been promoted, demoted or expelled from their positions since 2012.

While China has aimed to shift its economy from being export-based to import-based, both manufacturing and consumption have not been performing at high-enough rates. Greater market access to service sectors such as healthcare, finance and education is expected too. It was the fifth RRR reduction and sixth interest rate cut in the previous year.