Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to meet economic targets for the year even as the government’s zero tolerance approach to combating COVID-19 outbreaks and a weak housing market put the growth goal further out of reach.
In a keynote speech to a virtual BRICS Business Forum on Wednesday, Xi said China will "strengthen macro-policy adjustment and adopt more effective measures to strive to meet the social and economic development targets for 2022 and minimize the impacts of COVID-19,” according to a Xinhua report.
It was the first reference to the targets since an April Politburo meeting, with most economists expecting Beijing will miss its gross domestic product growth goal of around 5.5% this year. In the latest Bloomberg survey, economists downgraded their full-year growth projections by 40 basis points to 4.1% and predicted a contraction in GDP in the second quarter from the previous three months.