China Sets Lowest Economic Growth Target in Decades

China has set its lowest economic growth target in decades, announcing it would aim for 4.5% to 5% expansion in 2026 as the world’s second-largest economy grapples with weak domestic demand and an uncertain global outlook, John Liou reported for CNN Business.

The 2026 target is the lowest since Beijing began announcing such figures in the early 1990s.

The moderate projection follows three consecutive years of aiming for “around 5%” growth from 2023 to 2025, which the country achieved despite a slow recovery from stringent COVID-19 controls and US President Donald Trump’s tariff offensive last year.

Still, China’s broader growth trajectory has flattened, weighed down by a prolonged property crisis, declining investment, tepid consumption, and deflation.

Not since the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak has the government been less ambitious in its outlook.

In 2020, with the economy nearly paralyzed by the coronavirus, officials passed on setting a numerical target.

The 2026 target is the lowest since Beijing began announcing such figures in the early 1990s.

“Over the past year, the Chinese economy has proved remarkably resilient, forging ahead against headwinds,” Premier Li Qiang, the country’s No. 2 official, said Thursday at the opening of the annual assembly of China’s legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC).

“Rarely in many years have we encountered such a grave and complex landscape, where external shocks and challenges were intertwined with domestic difficulties and tough policy choices,” he said, acknowledging that the domestic economy remained in the midst of “deep-seated structural problems.”