Economics
Xi Skips Old Growth Pledge as China Seeks Quality, Not Quantity
- Xi didn’t mention a key Party goal of doubling GDP by 2020
- Change of wording in blueprint talk stresses quality over pace
What Xi's Party Congress Speech Means for Investors
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Chinese President Xi Jinping has quietly dropped a commitment made by his predecessor to double the size of his nation’s economy.
In 2012, former President Hu Jintao pledged China will "double its 2010 gross domestic product and per capita income for both urban and rural residents" by 2020, which dictated a roughly 6.5 percent annual growth pace through that decade. Today, instead of re-iterating that goal, Xi has replaced it with a much vaguer commitment that China will stick to previous requirements, which included building a "moderately prosperous society" by 2020.