China focused on jobs as national legislature meets
BEIJING (AP) — As job losses surge, China is joining the United States and other governments in rolling out stimulus spending to revive its virus-battered economy.
How much is Beijing ready to spend? Companies and the public are looking to the meeting of the ceremonial national legislature starting Friday for details. One closely watched indicator: Whether Beijing will skip for the first time setting an economic growth target given uncertainties over what lies ahead.
China, where the coronavirus pandemic began in December, was the first economy to start reopening in March. But while the United States, Japan and Europe launched or debated plans for a flood of spending to shore up economic activity, the ruling Communist Party held back and focused instead on reopening factories.
Now, facing a politically perilous wave of tens of millions of jobs lost, President Xi Jinping's government is promising to prop up employment to support the economy’s main growth engine — consumer spending.
“We see huge unemployment pressure, and we need to see sizable stimulus to keep people employed,” said Citigroup economist Li-Gang Liu.
Adding to that pressure is the re-escalation of a tariff war with Washington over Beijing’s technology ambitions and trade surplus. The two sides signed a truce in January but President Donald Trump says he might back out if China doesn’t buy more American farm products and other exports.
The gathering of the 3,000-plus delegates to the ceremonial National People’s Congress, delayed from March, is the year’s highest-profile political event but does little lawmaking work. Instead, Chinese leaders use the meeting to showcase policy decisions already made by the ruling party about health, education, aid to farmers and other issues.
The focus...
