The Year Ahead 2023
China’s Consumers Are the Key to Lifting 2023 Growth Above 5%
The end of Covid Zero and policy reversals in real estate are a good start. The next step is shoring up households’ buying power.
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China’s U-turn on Covid Zero is a big deal. But Beijing needs do more if it wants to push economic growth anywhere near the pre-pandemic rate of 6% a year.
Xi Jinping and his top economic aides largely brushed the virus to one side when they gathered in Beijing in December to lay plans for the coming year, relegating it to a few lines in the readout of a meeting that focused on boosting consumption and business confidence. “Xi himself is quite determined to bring growth back,” says Yao Yang, dean of the National School of Development, a think tank in Beijing that advises China’s government.