China Touts Policy Space in Shielding Economy From Trade War

We have the basic support and guarantee of achieving this year's growth target of around 5 per cent,

Zheng said

Zheng Shanjiestate planner

However, we feel that these difficulties and challenges are in the process of development and progress, and they can all be overcome and solved,

Zheng added

We are also facing some problems such as insufficient domestic demand, production and operation difficulties in some industries and some enterprises,

he said

Alicia García-Herrerospanish economist

I read it as 'we need to cut prices but we are going to export in this deflationary environment, because China has to export no matter what the tariffs are',

said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis

It suggests that policymakers are not counting on a substantial reflationary impulse this year,

Capital Economics analyst Julian Evans-Pritchard said

There are constraints on fiscal sustainability,

said Ding

You need those structural reforms around pensions, around social safety nets, around hukou, to actually give households the confidence to spend when they're not just getting a really good discount from subsidies,

he said

We worry that they will add another 10 percent and then another 10 percent,

said Dave Fong, who manufactures school bags, talking teddy bears, stationery and consumer electronics in China

Eswar Prasadthe fallout, former IMF official

With deflationary pressures becoming entrenched against the background of an unfavorable external environment... boosting domestic household consumption demand is a key priority,

said Eswar Prasad, trade policy professor at Cornell University and a former China director at the International Monetary Fund

Li Qiangpremier

An increasingly complex and severe external environment may exert a greater impact on China in areas such as trade, science, and technology,

the 32-page report said

President Xi Jinping has made it very clear that he wants to modernise China’s military by the year 2035 and a lot of that money will go towards military technology, better missiles, better submarines and missile surveillance technology,

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu said

Budget deficit ratio from 3 percent to 4 percent doesn’t seem much, but that’s the highest that has been set in three decades. So the government is committing to spending more,

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu said, reporting from Beijing

Further expanding the trade surplus is no longer a good strategy, so we need to rely on internal demand for growth,

said Andrew Xia, chief economist at Shangshan Capital Group

It’s not a pivot from the previous industrial policy, but pursuing a more balanced" macroeconomic framework

Zhang said

We also expect the authorities to adjust the budget by mid-year if the growth momentum is hit by trade disputes,

ANZ analysts said

For the first time, boosting consumption has been elevated to the top priority among 2025's major tasks, displacing technology from its usual leading position,

said Tilly Zhang, technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics

That's been super-successful in boosting spending on those types of goods,

said Harry Murphy Cruise, head of China and Australia economics at Moody's Analytics

But outside of that, spending is still very weak,

he added, decrying a lack of detail on other consumer policies

A large part of China's economic growth last year was supported by exports, but the looming trade war with the United States has brought unpredictable risks to Chinese exports in 2025,

said Wang Kuo-chen, an economist at the Chung-Hua Institute for Economic Research in Taiwan

Since China’s domestic demand remains insufficient, they can only rely on boosting consumption to drive economic growth in 2025,

he told VOA by phone