BEIJING: China opens its annual parliamentary session on Sunday (Mar 5), with the National People’s Congress (NPC) set to implement the biggest government shakeup in a decade as Beijing confronts a host of challenges and looks to revive its COVID-battered economy.
Premier Li Keqiang will open the session at 9am local time, reading out a government work report that is expected to include an economic growth target that could range as high as 6 per cent in a bid to boost confidence and build on a promising post-pandemic recovery, sources involved in policy discussions said.
Li and a slate of more reform-oriented economic policy officials are set to retire during the congress, making way for loyalists to President Xi Jinping, who further tightened his grip on power when he secured a precedent-breaking third-leadership term at last October’s Communist Party Congress.
During the NPC, former Shanghai party chief Li Qiang, a longtime Xi ally, is expected to be confirmed as premier.
The 63-year-old Li will be tasked with reinvigorating an economy, the world’s second-largest, that grew just 3 per cent last year, bruised by three years of COVID-19 curbs, crisis in its vast property sector, a crackdown on private enterprise that has rattled investors, and weakening demand for Chinese exports.
The parliament, which will end on Mar 13, will also discuss Xi’s plans for an “intensive” and “wide-ranging” reorganisation of state and Communist Party entities, state media reported on Tuesday, with analysts expecting a further deepening of Communist Party penetration of state bodies.