China may cut GDP target to 6.5% amid economic slowdown

China may cut its GDP growth target to 6.5 per cent from 7 per cent in its next five year plan from coming year. This may be announced  at the top policy body of the ruling Communist Party's meet beginning here on Monday  amid continued slowdown of world's second largest economy.

The fifth plenary session of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee which will be presided over by the CPC Central Committee's General Secretary and President Xi Jinping will deliberate 13th five year plan (2016-2020) for economic and social development.

Ahead of the four-day meeting, official reports quoted Premier Li Keqiang as saying that China's economy which slipped below the seven per cent in the Q3 for the first time since 2009 does not need to grow seven per cent this year.

"First, 6.9 per cent is about 7 per cent, which is in a reasonable range," Li was quoted by People's Daily.

"We never said we must defend any target to the death," he said. China may cut its GDP growth target to 6.5 per cent in the next five years, a further decrease from this year's goal of 7 per cent, a recent report in Economic Information, a newspaper affiliated to state-run Xinhua news agency said.

Till now Chinese government has set 7 per cent as the target amid the continued slowdown. Recent IMF forecast said China's growth is expected to slow from 7.3 per cent in 2014 to 6.8 per cent this year and 6.3 per cent in 2016 as the country struggles with its shift from export oriented economy to the one driven by consumption.

The new five year plans takes into the consideration of the current slowdown and lay out institutional Party reform plans to guarantee a better and effective national leadership, officials said.

China has drawn Five-Year Plans since 1953 to map strategies for overall economic and social development, setting growth targets and defining development policies.

Besides efforts to address to halt the slowdown and carry forward the urbanisation process, the new plan's thrust was expected to lift 70.17 million people who are still below poverty in China by 2020.

It meant that a million people have to be lifted to above poverty line every month specially when the world's second largest economy is on down word trajectory.