President Xi Jinping used a monthly huddle of China’s top leaders to discuss the economy and call for the government to provide sufficient fiscal spending, a rare change in agenda that underscores growing anxiety in Beijing over the nation’s slowing growth.
The 24-man Politburo vowed to complete the country’s annual economic goals, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Thursday. Officials said the government needs to ensure necessary fiscal spending and stabilize the real estate market, including strictly limiting the supply of new commercial housing construction.
It also called on the forceful implementation of cuts to interest rates and a reserve requirement ratio for banks, easing measures announced by the People’s Bank of China this week.
The decision-making body typically devotes only its April, July, and December sessions to discussions on the current economic situation. The last time such a meeting fell outside those months was March 2020, according to official readouts, when China was reeling from the outbreak of Covid-19. For the past four years, September sessions have focused mostly on party discipline or internal work.
Chinese ADRs jumped again in morning trading Thursday. YINN rose 24%; KWEB rose 12%; Alibaba and NIO rose 8%; PDD Holdings rose 12%; JD.com rose 14%; XPeng and Li Auto rose 11%; Bilibili rose 17%.
The conclave comes two days after China’s central bank governor Pan Gongsheng unleashed his nation’s most daring policy package in decades, in a bid to revive the economy. That stimulus blitz sent China’s beleaguered markets soaring, with the CSI 300 Index — a benchmark of onshore Chinese stocks — posting its biggest gain since July 2020.