{"id":172079,"date":"2023-11-22T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mediaintel.asia\/?p=927680"},"modified":"2023-11-22T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T00:00:00","slug":"china-govt-advisers-call-for-steady-growth-target-in-2024-more-stimulus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/2023\/11\/22\/china-govt-advisers-call-for-steady-growth-target-in-2024-more-stimulus\/","title":{"rendered":"China govt advisers call for steady growth target in 2024, more stimulus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"MediaIntel.Asia\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Chinese government advisers will recommend economic growth targets for next year ranging from 4.5% to 5.5% to an annual policy-makers\u2019 meeting, as Beijing seeks to create jobs and keep long-term development goals on track.
\nFive of the seven advisers who spoke with Reuters said they favoured a target of around 5%, matching this year\u2019s goal. One adviser will propose a 4.5% target, while the other suggested a 5.0-5.5% range.
\nThe proposals will be made next month at the ruling Communist Party\u2019s annual Central Economic Work Conference that discusses policy plans and the outlook for the world\u2019s second-largest economy.
\nReaching such targets would require Beijing to step up fiscal stimulus, the advisers said, given that this year\u2019s growth has been flattered by last year\u2019s low-base effect of COVID-19 lockdowns.
\n\u201cWe need to adopt expansionary fiscal and monetary policy to stimulate aggregate demand,\u201d Yu Yongding, a government economist who advocates for a growth target of roughly 5%, told Reuters.
\n\u201cCorporate investment demand will not be strong as the confidence of companies has not recovered, so we need to expand infrastructure investment,\u201d added Yu, who also favours a budget deficit topping 4% of economic output.
\nThe other advisers spoke on condition of anonymity due to the closed-door nature of the discussions. Top leaders are expected to endorse the target at the December meeting, although it will not be announced publicly until China\u2019s annual parliament meeting, usually held in March.
\nIn October, China unveiled a plan to issue 1 trillion yuan ($139 billion) in sovereign bonds by the end of the year, raising the 2023 budget deficit target to 3.8% of gross domestic product (GDP) from the original 3%.
\nChinese leaders have pledged to \u201coptimize the structure of central and local government debt,\u201d suggesting the central government has room to spend more as its debt as a share of GDP is just 21%, far lower than 76% for local governments.
\n\u201cWe are stepping up fiscal policy support,\u201d said another adviser, to make the \u201cdifficult\u201d 2024 target \u201cachievable.\u201d
\nMonetary stimulus is expected to play a more limited role as the central bank remains concerned a widening interest rate differential with the West may further weaken the yuan and encourage capital outflows.
\n\u201cThe space for monetary policy could be bigger if we have greater tolerance for exchange rate fluctuations,\u201d said Guan Tao, global chief economist at BOC International and a former official at the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).
\nChina\u2019s economy grew only 3% in 2022, one of its worst performances in nearly half a century. A Reuters poll in October showed that economists expect it to grow 5.0% in 2023 and 4.5% in 2024, although some have since raised their forecasts.
\nIn 2022, President Xi Jinping laid out a long-term vision of \u201cChinese-style modernization\u201d at a key party meeting, with a goal of doubling China\u2019s economy by 2035 that government economists say would require average annual growth of 4.7%.
\nThe stuttering post-COVID recovery has prompted many analysts to call for structural reforms that tilt the drivers of economic growth away from property and infrastructure investment and towards household consumption and market-allocation of resources.
\nAbsent that, these economists warn, China may begin flirting with Japan-style stagnation later this decade.
\nBeijing has been trying to reduce economic reliance on property, channelling more resources into high-tech manufacturing and green industries, but has struggled to boost consumer and investor sentiment.
\nPolicy insiders believe more fundamental changes, especially a revival of market-oriented reforms, are unlikely due to the political environment, under which the state has increased its control over the economy, including the private sector.
\n\u201cIf there is no consensus on reforms, we will have to use stimulus to drive growth, even though it will not be sustainable,\u201d a third adviser said.<\/p>\n

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese government advisers will recommend economic growth targets for next year ranging from 4.5% to 5.5% to an annual policy-makers\u2019 meeting, as Beijing seeks to create jobs and keep long-term development goals on track.
\nFive of the seven advisers w…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[669,65,144,1527,586,477,693,1607,194,472,1542],"tags":[3472,10321,10324,10315,2972,4886],"class_list":["post-172079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bank","category-beijing","category-china","category-currency","category-economy","category-investment","category-japan","category-manufacturing","category-news-chinese-law","category-renminbi","category-technology","tag-chinese","tag-communist","tag-covid-19","tag-media-intelligence","tag-xi-jinping","tag-yuan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172079"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172080,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172079\/revisions\/172080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinalegalblog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}