Experts say nation still on track to meet key development goals

China is on course to meet its important development goals despite the setback of the coronavirus pandemic, according to experts.

They were responding to the Government Work Report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang on Friday, the opening day of the 3rd session of the 13th National People's Congress, the nation's top legislature.

Li said China would work toward meeting the goals of becoming a moderately prosperous society and eliminating all extreme poverty in time for the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China next year, despite not setting a target for GDP this year.

Zhu Ning, deputy dean of the National Institute of Financial Research at Tsinghua University, said he was confident the goals would be met.

"We are more or less already there. I think it was important there was no growth target. I don't think there is a need for one now. We need to focus on the quality of growth from now on," he said.

Becoming a moderately prosperous society was originally defined as doubling 2010 GDP per capita income by the end of this year, in time for the CPC centennial anniversary next year.

Jeremy Stevens, Beijing-based chief China economist of Standard Bank, Africa's largest bank, said a lot of international commentators had become too obsessed with this.

"As far as I am concerned, the very specific target was always a red herring. In spirit it had been achieved already," he said.

George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University's China Centre, said abandoning the target will be welcomed by economists.

"They will hope it is a precedent, allowing the authorities to focus better on the quality of growth and resource allocation," he said.

Li made clear in the report that China faced difficult global conditions, with many countries still in lockdown.

"At present and for some time to come, China will face risks and challenges like never before," Li said.

However, he added, "We have unique political and institutional strengths, a strong economic foundation, enormous market potential, and hundreds of millions of intelligent and hardworking people."

The work report prioritized job creation and set a target of creating 9 million new urban jobs this year, and to keep the surveyed urban unemployment rate at 6 percent.

According to Zhu of Tsinghua University, "This is clearly the top target for this year. Many people have lost their jobs during the lockdown. It is a less tangible target than GDP. Employment is a more fluid concept, with many migrant workers not counted in the employment survey."

In terms of fiscal stimulus, China intends to increase the central government fiscal deficit from 2.8 to 3.6 percent, which will inject 1 trillion yuan ( $140 billion) into the economy.

There will also be an increase in the quota of local government bond issuance, from 2.5 trillion yuan in 2019 to 3.75 trillion yuan this year. This is earmarked for modern infrastructure investment such as 5G base stations, water conservation and urban upgrading.

The overall focus is on tax cuts and other measures to increase consumption to get the demand side of the economy going again after the lockdown.