00:00Well, China has set its least ambitious growth target in more than three decades and a tacit
00:05acknowledgement that the model powering the country's rapid rise is starting to show signs
00:10of strain. Let's get over to Beijing. Nara Chief North Asia Correspondent Stephen Engels is with
00:15us for more on the government's annual work report. Steve. Yeah, that's right. As you can
00:22see behind me, perhaps, if I can step away a little bit, you can see that the delegates are
00:27leaving the Great Hall of the People after the conclusion, of course, of Li Qiang, the premier's
00:33work report, where he gave that annual growth target of between four and a half to five percent.
00:40So it's really a range rather than a specific hard target. Now, last year was a bit softer as well,
00:50about around five percent. This time they've gone even lower, down as low as four and a half percent,
00:55giving the policymakers a bit of wiggle room to navigate some of the stresses or the headwinds
01:01that the Chinese economy might face this year. Not only externally, of course, after nearly a year
01:08of Trump era tariffs, we have the uncertainty in the Middle East and oil prices and the like.
01:14But again, they're buying some time and buying some wiggle room because of the stresses in the
01:20domestic economy, the ongoing property mess, the fiscal struggles at the municipal level and
01:27essentially the longer term over the five year, next five year plan of rebalancing the economy and
01:33relying more on domestic consumption instead of the main pillars of investment and export. So
01:40there are a lot as as Li Qiang ran through the list of of challenges and opportunities,
01:45those challenges he played up because, again, they are lessening the expectations for stimulus,
01:53large scale stimulus. That is something that Xi Jinping has resisted doing to stoke that very high
02:00budget deficit, the debt to GDP ratio at a record high right now. So let's hear what Li Qiang had
02:10to
02:10say, the premier, about their growth forecast. The main targets for development this year are as
02:16follows. GDP growth of 4.5 to 5 percent. While striving for better in practice. Surveyed urban
02:27unemployment rate rate of around 5.5 percent. Over 12 million new urban jobs. CPI increase of around 2 percent.
02:43So the next task for these delegates who are leaving the Great Hall of the People is to go through
02:50and
02:50review all those documents and pages for the next five year plan, the 15th five year plan, which was
02:56essentially solidified at the Central Economic Work Conference in December. It gets ratified,
03:02codified here at the NPC. So they have a lot of work to do over the next course of the
03:07week
03:08before we wrap up on March 12th, Thursday of next week. So again, lower growth expectations. Also a
03:18seven percent increase this year. Same as last year for military spending. But many economists and many
03:24China watchers we've spoken to expect it actually to be a larger number this year than last year at a
03:32time when the PLA is going through that big purge, if you will, of top generals and a discipline campaign
03:39led by President Xi Jinping. Not to mention as well the war that has erupted in the Middle East. Not
03:45to
03:45say that China is going to be sending weapons or being involved in that. But again, as geopolitical
03:51tensions rise and war drums are beaten elsewhere outside, China is looking to modernize its large military as well.
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