NEW DELHI: With its economy taking a huge hit from the coronavirus pandemic, China on Friday announced that it will not set a GDP growth target for this year.
This is for the first time since 1990 that China is doing away with setting an annual economic growth target.
“This is because our country will face some factors that are difficult to predict in its development due to the great uncertainty regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and the world economic and trade environment,” Premier Li Keqiang said at the start of the country’s annual parliament meeting.
Analysts say Friday’s decision may have been taken as China is set to miss a key political goal of doubling its gross domestic product from the 2010 levels, which would be a blow to the ruling party’s pledge to provide prosperity.
Before the pandemic, China was widely expected to announce a growth target of about six per cent for the year.
However, with COVID-19 causing economic growth to shrink 6.8 per cent in the first quarter, the Chinese leadership felt such a target would no longer be feasible.
Premier Li said the country will instead “give priority to stabilising employment and ensuring living standards”.
Li also said the government will tighten its belts at all levels, and that all types of surplus funds will be withdrawn and re-allocated, to be put for better use.
The country also doubled down Friday on efforts to combat the pandemic and create jobs as the number of people thrown out of work soars worldwide.
The help for the world’s number two economy, the main driver of world growth in recent years, followed news that nearly 39 million Americans have lost their jobs since the crisis accelerated two months ago.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, the top economic leader, said Friday that Beijing would give local governments 2 trillion yuan ($280 billion) to help them undo the damage from shutdowns imposed to curb the spread of the virus after it first appeared in central China in late 2019.
Li told the annual session of the largely ceremonial National People's Congress that the battle against the new coronavirus, which has infected at least 5.1 million people worldwide according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, “has not yet come to an end.”
The lawmakers were meeting under strict health precautions in Beijing after the gathering was postponed for nearly two months. China is still striving to snuff out outbreaks. It reported four new confirmed virus cases on Friday and no new deaths.
(With Inputs from Associated Press)