China has set an ambitious growth target of around 5% for 2024 as it aims to boost its flagging economy.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang made the announcement at the opening of the country’s annual meeting of the National People’s Congress on Tuesday, in a speech that prioritised both security and the economy.
Mr Li said the government would issue 1 trillion yuan (around £110bn) in “ultralong special treasury bonds” in 2024 and over each of the coming several years – a long hoped-for extra promise of government spending to help support flagging growth.
The ruling Communist Party has been emphasising the need to raise consumer spending to help drive the economy.
The consumer-led recovery it was counting on after pandemic controls ended in late 2022 faltered midway through last year.
Falling housing prices and worries over jobs left many families either reluctant or unable to spend more.
In 2023, the economy grew at a 5.2% pace, but that was after a very slow 3% annual growth rate in 2022, when the country was enduring the worst disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read more world news
What happened to Haiti?
US urges Israel to ensure ‘credible’ humanitarian plan
The pain behind Ukraine’s war statistics
Mr Li said China’s leadership would strive to improve its handling of policies.
“We should communicate policies to the public in a well-targeted way to create a stable, transparent and predictable policy environment,” Mr Li said in his speech at the Great Hall of the People at the western edge of Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
Mr Li said the government would continue with a “pro-active fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy,” suggesting no major change in the leadership’s approach to pursuing what it calls “high quality” development.
China to increase defence spending
China also plans to boost defence spending by 7.2% in 2024, the same rate as last year – with an official work report showing 1.67 trillion yuan (around £180bn) has been allocated to military spending.
China’s defence budget has doubled since President Xi Jinping came to power more than a decade ago.
This year’s increase in defence spending marks the ninth consecutive single-digit increase. As in previous years, no
breakdown of the spending was given, just the overall amount and the rate of increase.
The Chinese premier made the remarks to the nearly 3,000 delegates of the National People’s Congress and around 2,000 members of a parallel advisory body.
The meetings of the national congress run for about a week and are China’s biggest political events of the year.
The congress only endorses policies already set by top leaders, but it provides a platform to showcase the Communist Party accomplishments and to build support for its aims going forward.
In China’s political system, Mr Li’s role as premier means he is responsible for organising and administering the Chinese civil bureaucracy, with one of his responsibilities being planning and implementing national economic and social development and the state budget.
This story originally appeared on Skynews
