The program will be tweaked again in December by the Central Economic Work Conference, before finally being enacted at the National People’s Congress in March. The plan runs from 2016 to 2020 and is the first since President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang came to office in 2012.
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During the ongoing year, growth will be within the government’s “flexible 7 percent” target, around 6.8-6.9 percent.
But the Central Committee reaffirmed the twin goals of doubling GDP and income per capita by 2020 compared with 2010 levels.
China’s Communist leaders gathered Monday to plan the country’s course for the next five years, official media reported, confronting an economic malaise that has investors anxious and intractable problems such as pollution souring the public mood. Party leadership fears that a hard landing could produce social instability – a threat to its grip on power. “The government is still trying to control what is a basic human right”.
Meanwhile, Dale Nicholls, manager of the £743m Fidelity China Special Situations fund, said the final growth numbers hide great variation between different sectors of the economy. In the 1980s, as the government loosened its grip on the economy, it also became a bit more relaxed about the five-year plans.
Leaders have also pledged to establish a “new normal” of slower, more sustainable expansion after the double-digit growth of the past.
The Chinese state has released a psychedelic animated video to outlet what it has planned for its latest five year plan.
The single-minded focus on promoting growth has, among other problems, led leaders to ignore the effects of the country’s dependence on heavy industry powered by cheap but dirty coal.
Many Australian companies with – or seeking to gain – exposure to China, like Treasury Wine Estates Ltd (ASX: TWE) and Retail Food Group Limited (ASX: RFG), depend on growing consumer wealth and continued strong spending behaviour to deliver growth. He called for further opening up of the economy to global investors, and the speeding up of reforms to China’s financial system, fiscal management, pricing system and the state-owned enterprise sector.
The party does not look kindly upon any challenges to its official narrative of history over issues like World War Two, which lauds the role of the party in fighting the Japanese, a view often challenged by Western academics and others who say it was Nationalist forces who did most of the fighting.
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These changes had been bandied as part of the reforms that Mr Xi wanted to push through to modernise the PLA, amid his anti-corruption sweep of the military that saw former top CMC leaders hauled up.
