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China’s parliament is expected to unveil moderate stimulus plans to stabilize growth at an annual meeting beginning on Tuesday, but may disappoint those calling for a detailed roadmap of bold policies to fix the country’s deep structural imbalances.
Premier Li Qiang will lay out economic targets for this year and deliver his first work report to the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s rubber-stamp legislature, in the giant Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square.
A property crisis, deepening deflation, a stock market rout, and mounting local government debt woes are putting enormous pressure on China’s leaders to take momentous policy decisions that will put the economy on solid footing for the long-term.
But analysts and policy advisers expect the NPC agenda to focus more on near-term support for the sputtering economy after a post-pandemic rebound quickly floundered.
Li may nod to measures to improve the business environment and changes to promote technological innovation, but is unlikely to roll out big reforms that would need the Chinese Communist Party’s green light, they said.
“The top priority is to stabilize the economy,” said Zong Liang, chief of research at state-owned Bank of China.
Li is expected to set a growth target of around 5 percent for 2024 — the same as last year — to keep China on a path towards President Xi Jinping’s goal of roughly doubling the economy by 2035 and achieve “Chinese-style modernization.”
That will require more fiscal stimulus, as last year’s 5.2— growth rate was likely much flattered by a comparison with a COVID-hit 2022.
