Update | GDP growth target flexible as jobs take priority, says Premier Li Keqiang
Increasing employment more important than fixed target for GDP expansion, premier says, in clearest sign nation can tolerate slower growth
The official economic growth target will be flexible as long as it can ensure stable jobs, Premier Li Keqiang told an international audience in the clearest message to date by a top leader about the nation's willingness to tolerate slower growth.
Li said after the closing of the annual National People's Congress session yesterday that the nation must be prepared for more complex challenges.
"We need to ensure steady growth and employment, avert inflation and defuse risks," he said. "We also need to raise the quality and efficiency of China's economic development and tackle pollution and save energy. We need to strike a proper balance among all these ... This is not going to be easy."
Watch: Chinese Premier Li Keqiang says debt defaults 'hardly avoidable'
Leaders have pledged to shift China's growth model from chasing high growth to improving quality as it tackles overcapacity, pollution, slowing external demand for its exports and social unrest fuelled by a widening wealth gap.
Communist Party leaders also decided last year that gross domestic product growth would no longer be the sole gauge for local officials' performance.
