By Liu Chang
BEIJING: China has set an annual economic growth target, at above 6% for 2021, with more efforts on reform, innovation, and high-quality development, Premier Li Keqiang announced on Friday while delivering the government’s work report at the fourth session of the 13th National People’s Congress.
“In 2021, China will continue to face many development risks and challenges, but the economic fundamentals that will sustain long-term growth remain unchanged,” Li said, noting the country has confidence in its economic recovery.
In 2020, China dropped a gross domestic product growth target from the premier’s work report for the first time since 2002 after the Covid-19 devastated its economy. China’s GDP expanded 2.3% last year, the weakest in 44 years but making it the only major economy in the world to register positive growth in 2020.
Due to uncertainties of the time, China didn’t set a GDP target last year. Sun Guojun, a member of the drafting team of the government work report with the State Council Research Office, said they set a goal this year because they believe “recovery and growth that started from the second quarter last year would sustain through 2021.”
The government is forecasting the creation of over 11 million new urban jobs this year, with an unemployment rate under 5.5 percent. On inflation, it expects the Consumer Price Index to increase by around 3 percent as well as steady growth in personal income. A drop of around 3 percent in energy consumption per unit of GDP is projected, along with a further improvement in the environment.
The drafters say the six percent growth goal for 2021 is realistic for several reasons. This includes the quick and stable recovery in consumption, investments, and exports – all pillars of China’s future economic growth.
For the more vulnerable economic players, especially small and medium sized companies, they say economic support will remain.
Provinces and cities across China will have different GDP targets in 2021, as they were hit by COVID-19 to different degrees. For example, Hubei was severely hit by the pandemic and saw its real GDP growth slump 5 percent in 2020, while Tibet was only slightly hit and rebounded much better, posting a 7.8-percent growth last year.
Twenty-nine of 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities on the Chinese mainland have set their GDP growth rate higher than 6 percent in 2021, according to the released work reports from the local governments as of Tuesday.
Central China’s Hubei Province and the only tropical island province Hainan are working towards a goal of more than 10-percent economic growth.
Hubei, the first place hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in China, recorded a negative 5 percent economic growth in 2020, the only province on the Chinese mainland that suffered a negative growth last year. Based on a relatively low GDP growth, Hubei could see a rebound in 2021.
Last June, China released a master plan for the Hainan free port that aims to build the island province into a globally influential duty-free trading center by the middle of the century, which will provide extra boosts for the province’s growth.
Tibet led the 2020 growth rate among the 31 provincial-level regions, with a pace of 7.8 percent, followed by southwestern provinces Guizhou and Yunnan, which recorded a growth rate of 4.5 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
In 2021, Tibet’s GDP growth target is over 9 percent, while the pace is set around 8 percent for Guizhou and Yunnan.
