Paramilitary police march on Tiananmen Square outside the Great Hall of the People before the closing ceremony of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Beijing on March 12, 2009. China’s annual parliamentary sessions, the National People’s Congress (NPC) and its advisory auxiliary, the CPPCC come to a close with the economy and unemployment at the top the agenda.
Peter Parks | Afp | Getty Images
Chinese leadership will kick off the annual parliamentary gathering on Tuesday, with Beijing poised to outline economic measures designed to achieve its anticipated growth target of 5%.
Thousands of delegates gathered in the capital this week for the country’s biggest political event of the year, known as the “Two Sessions.”
The highly anticipated event comes as tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration loom large.
The “Two Sessions” event, which consists of two parallel sets of meetings, will start with an opening meeting of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a top advisory body, at 3 p.m. local time (2 a.m. ET) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
At the opening plenary, the CPPCC members, made up of party delegates and representatives from the arts, business and legal sectors, will review and approve the agenda for the upcoming meeting and listen to a work report from the committee’s chairman Wang Huning, a top advisor to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The meeting of its top legislature, the National People’s Congress, is scheduled to open on Wednesday.
As part of the NPC meeting, investors will closely monitor a government work report, delivered by Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday, where policymakers are expected to set the country’s economic growth target at “around 5%,” while raising fiscal budget targets to 4% of gross domestic product from 3% last year.
The leaders are also expected to revise down its annual consumer price inflation target to around 2%, the lowest level in more than two decades.
The week-long event, which is scheduled to conclude on March 11, will be followed by a press conference with the foreign minister Wang Yi and heads of economic departments. The foreign minister’s briefing will reveal clues on how Beijing plans to deal with the new U.S. administration.
The White House has imposed an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods, starting Tuesday, bringing the total amount of new tariffs in just about a month to 20%.
China’s finance ministry said Tuesday it would impose additional tariffs of up to 15% on some U.S. goods from March 10 and restrict exports to 15 U.S. companies.
The Ministry of Commerce reiterated that Beijing “firmly rejects” the extra tariffs and vowed to take countermeasures, a day after Chinese state-backed media Global Times reported that officials are considering retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural and food products.
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