SHANGHAI ¨C After Chinese gross domestic product grew by only , one would have expected the government to set a growth target of at least 6% for this year.
In fact, virtually no market forecast projects a lower rate. Yet, at last month¡¯s National People¡¯s Congress, outgoing Premier Li Keqiang revealed in his final Government Work Report that the government was aiming for growth of about 5%, the lowest target of his tenure.
Under former Premier Wen Jiabao, from 2003 to 2013, China maintained an official growth target of . But, in his final Government Work Report, Wen for the first time, by 0.5 percentage points. The reason was obvious: Wen wanted to help cool the then-overheated economy. Surprisingly, Wen¡¯s successor, Li, effectively treated 7.5% as a during his 10-year term.
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