Stay off target

22 May 2020 By Pete Sweeney Follow @petesweeneypro

Beijing has ditched its annual GDP target for the first time. This relieves officials from making up for slumping demand by juicing industrial overcapacity with sloppy credit, and puts employment into focus. What’s good for China will be mixed news for trading partners.

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China will not publish an annual growth target for 2020, Premier Li Keqiang said at the opening of the annual parliamentary meeting on May 22: “We have not set a specific target for economic growth for the year, mainly because the global epidemic situation and economic and trade situation are very uncertain, and China's development is facing some unpredictable factors."

This will be the first time China has not set a target for gross domestic product since the government began publishing such goals in 1990, according to Reuters.

China will aim for a budget deficit of at least 3.6% of GDP for the year, above last year's 2.8%, Li said, adding that money supply growth and total social financing – a homegrown measure of credit supply – would be significantly higher.

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