Concerns Over China GDP Target

BEIJING – Economists are calling the Chinese government’s economic growth target for 2015 of “around 7 percent” predictable yet are raising questions over whether leaders have a clear plan for reforms needed to steer the world’s second largest economy away from its dependence on debt-fueled growth underpinned by wasteful construction projects, an overheated real estate market and bloated heavy industries, particularly in the iron and steel sectors. Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang reealed this year’s GDP growth target on Thursday morning to thousands of delegates at the National People’s Congress, an annual legislative meeting where leaders outline policy goals for the coming year. In 2014, China’s leadership set a GDP target of around 7.5 percent, which, with GDP growth of 7.4 percent, it slightly missed. This year’s goal of around 7 percent expansion is Beijing’s lowest economic growth target in more than 15 years. “The economic goal is predictable,” Lu Ming, an economics professor at Shanghai’s Fudan and Jiaotong universities, said. “The Chinese economy has grown so fast for such a long time. There is no single economy in the world that can maintain that level of growth.” China’s leadership has acknowledged this, particularly as debt has skyrocketed, mainly from local governments that have

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