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There will be no ‘hard landing’ for the Chinese economy, despite growth forecast cuts, according to Xu Shaoshi, the Head of China’s state planning agency, commenting on the draft outline of the 13th Five-Year Plan on national economy and social development at the 12th National People’s Congress (NPC).
This message was delivered loud and clear in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing last Saturday, despite Asia’s leading economic powerhouse missing its growth target of around 7% last year. The economy is said to have grown by 6.9% in 2015 – the lowest level in 25 years – according to the Chinese Government’s official news arm, the Xinhua News Agency.
At the same time, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang pointed to lower growth expectations in his opening speech and more challenging times. He also announced a lowering of the economic growth target for this year to between 6.5% to 7% – a level most nations and economies around the world would obviously welcome, although this range over five years is much slower than the rates seen over the last 25-30 years.
However, Xinhua reports that the bottom end of this new target figure is understood to represent the ‘minimum growth required’ for China to attain its stated target of doubling its 2010 GDP and per capita income level within four years by 2020.
RISING TO NEW ECONOMIC CHALLENGE
Li Keqiang also announced that China’s GDP is now forecast to be in excess of CY92.7 trillion ($14.2 trillion) in 2020, compared with CY67.7 trillion in 2015, according to the draft, submitted to the National People’s Congress (NPC) annual session, which opened Saturday, for review.
The new five-year plan contains a number of important new policy measures, including the amazing prediction that China will create more than 50m new urban jobs in the next five years.
Xinhua also points to the Chinese Premier’s promise to try and help improve the quality of life for poverty-stricken rural residents, as well as reduce the number of heavily polluted days in large cities by 25%. However, this last aim will require a cap on industrial factory output that the country has so far been slow to implement.
Meanwhile, on the transport front, China is expected to complete its target of 30,000km of high-speed railways to link 80% of big cities nationwide. This is expected to take more pressure off the country’s airports where domestic flights are routinely delayed and many airports suffer from severe congestion.
CHINA-US TOURISM YEAR: This year (2016) is China-US Tourism Year, with Chinese President Xi Jinping sending a message of welcome to a high-powered tourism delegation from the US last week. He said: “I hope we’ll take this opportunity to expand personnel exchange, reinforce cultural exchange and foster a more solid social basis for bilateral relations development. American tourists are welcome to China. I wish 2016 China-U.S. Tourism Year a complete success.” US President Barack Obama reciprocated with his message: “Please get ready for more and more Americans are travelling to China. I also look forward to and welcome more Chinese to the United States. I believe that the more we understand each other, the more we can work with each other.”(Photo Credit: China National Tourist Office).
The recent announcement related to the creation of more duty free arrivals shops in China is also entirely in line with these ‘readjustments’ to the Chinese duty free regulations, as predicted last year and reported last month.
This follows the Chinese Government’s move to reign in a bigger share of high duty free spending levels by its Chinese nationals abroad, by authorising multiple duty free arrivals shop openings at leading airports and border points.
