Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio news this week,
thousands of Chinese lawmakers are gathering in Beijing for the annual meeting of the npc,
the National People's Congress.
The National People's Congress is China's parliament.
It reads, drafts and passes laws.
John Liu is Bloomberg's Senior Executive editor for Greater China, based in Beijing.
The number one thing that happens at the Congress on the first day,
China's premier gives what is equivalent to the State of the Nation address for China.
He comes out and says how the country is doing, how it did in the past year,
and then he lays out some very important targets for the coming year.
I will now report to you on the work of the government,
for your deliberation and also for Comments from For 2025,
Beijing set an ambitious GDP growth target of about 5%,
and Premier Li Qin declared that vigorously boosting consumption is the government's top priority.
To help ramp up domestic demand,
Beijing plans to expand its public spending by borrowing at a record level.
The government raised the general budget deficit to around 4% of GDP,
the highest level in more than three decades.
But it's unclear whether that kind of stimulus will be enough to help the Chinese economy weather the storm ahead.
And then, of course, there's the wild card.