Chinese President Xi Jinping has signaled no change in direction for two main risk factors dragging down China’s economy — strict COVID-19 rules and housing market policies — providing little lift to a worsening growth outlook.
Xi praised "COVID zero," his no-tolerance approach to containing infections, during a speech opening the 20th Communist Party congress in Beijing on Sunday, although he didn’t reference the virus again in sections laying out plans for the future. His slogans on China’s property market, meanwhile, repeated prior language even as the sector experiences its longest-ever slump due to policies aimed at curbing debt and financial risks.
Those two factors have been a major drag on the world’s second-largest economy, with economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicting growth of just 3.3% this year — the second-weakest pace in more than four decades. Third-quarter gross domestic product data, due to be released Tuesday, will likely show a muted recovery from almost stagnant growth in the second quarter.