China’s number two leader Li Keqiang has warned the country faces “a tough struggle,” as he laid out plans to prop up the world’s second-largest economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Opening the annual session of China’s parliament, he forecast slower growth of 6% – 6.5% this year, down from a target of around 6.5% in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China has struggled with a slowing economy and a US-led trade war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It plans to boost spending, increase foreign firms’ access to its markets, and cut billions of dollars in taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“In pursuing development this year, we will face a graver and more complicated environment as well as risks and challenges\u2026 that are greater in number and size,” Mr Li said in a lengthy speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We must be fully prepared for a tough struggle.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Li told 3,000 delegates at the National People’s Congress that China would aim to deliver nearly 2 trillion yuan ($298bn; \u00a3227bn) of cuts in taxes and other company fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A value-added tax (VAT) for transportation and construction sectors will be sliced from 10% to 9%, and VAT for manufacturers will fall from 16% to 13%, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China will increase its military budget by 7.5% to 1.2 trillion yuan, down from last year’s 8.1% rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The country’s defence spending is closely watched for any signals as to its military intentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Li also said China would continue to carry out a prudent monetary policy and use reserve requirements as policy tools. China cut reserve requirements – the amount commercial banks are required to hold on reserve – several times last year to boost lending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The economy expanded 6.6% in 2018, growing at is slowest rate since 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Easing US tensions’
\nMr Li also announced that Beijing would further relax controls over access to Chinese markets for foreign companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BBC China Correspondent Stephen McDonell says this appears to be an attempt to ease trade tensions with the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both countries imposed billions of dollars worth of tariffs on one another’s goods last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though officials have sounded more upbeat about negotiations with the US recently, failure to achieve a deal would see tariffs on $200bn of Chinese goods rise almost immediately and could see the US impose fresh tariffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
China’s number two leader Li Keqiang has warned the country faces “a tough struggle,” as he laid out plans to prop up the world’s second-largest economy. Opening the annual session of China’s parliament, he forecast slower growth of 6% – 6.5% this year, down from a target of around 6.5% in 2018. China has struggled with a slowing economy and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[119],"class_list":["post-3229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-bbc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3230,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229\/revisions\/3230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}