After a faster start in the first three months of 2024, it gained 4.7% in the three months leading up to June, falling short of projections. The administration hopes to boost the economy by about 5% annually.
“China’s economy hit the brakes in the June quarter,” Moody’s Analytics analyst Heron Lim stated, adding that analysts are looking to the ongoing Third Plenum conference in Beijing for answers.
The second-biggest economy in the world is struggling with a protracted real estate crisis, significant municipal debt, low consumption, and high unemployment.
Previous Plenum decisions have altered China’s historical trajectory.
Deng Xiaoping, China’s former leader, opened the country’s markets to foreign trade for the first time in 1978. In 2013, President Xi Jinping made strides toward loosening the controversial one-child policy.
Expectations are high for this year’s Plenum, as Mr. Xi will preside over a closed-door meeting of more than 370 senior Chinese Communist Party officials.
It’s true that the discourse surrounding state-run media has been positive.
A “wide range of reform-focused policies” are “high on the agenda,” according to an editorial in The Global Times, and they will open a “new chapter.” Xinhua described the reforms as “inclusive” and “unprecedented.” A “new era of reform and opening up” was the subject of the People’s Daily editorial, which borrowed Deng’s 1978 statement.