CHINA lowered its 2015 economic growth target to “approximately 7 percent” Thursday, scaling down expectations in the face of “formidable” difficulties for the world’s second-largest economy after its decades-long boom.

    The figure announced by Premier Li Keqiang is the lowest since a similar goal in 2004 and comes after China’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 7.4 percent in 2014, the slowest pace in 24 years. Last year’s target was 7.5 percent.

    The cut was widely expected by economists and reflects the reality of a multi-year slowdown in the Asian giant that has seen it come off regular annual double-digit expansions.

    China also reduced multiple other targets including trade growth and inflation.

    “With downward pressure on China’s economy building and deep-seated problems in development surfacing, the difficulties we are to encounter in the year ahead may be even more formidable than those of last year,” Li told the opening of the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing.

    Last year’s 7.4-percent result marked the first time since 1998 — during the Asian financial crisis — that the actual figure failed to meet the target number.

    Li told NPC delegates that the two-way trade growth target for 2015 was set at “around 6 percent,” down from last year’s 7.5 percent. China missed the goal in 2014 for the third consecutive year owing to soft domestic and foreign demand, expanding just 3.4 percent.

    The consumer inflation target was also lowered to “around 3 percent,” Li said, after it plunged to a five-year low of 0.8 percent in January, fueling fears the economy is on the brink of a deflationary spiral.

    Slower growth is a welcome byproduct of the transformation, analysts say, and will result in a more sustainable economic model. Li has said repeatedly that weaker growth is no problem so long as the quality is high and job growth is strong.

    China created 13.22 million new urban jobs last year, Li said, improving on 2013’s figure, but he kept the 2015 target for urban job creation at “over 10 million.”

    Li said in his 34-page report — which took him more than an hour and a half to deliver — that China “will pursue prudent and balanced monetary policy” and pledged to “comprehensively deepen” reform, echoing regular vows.

    (SD-Agencies)

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