China fine tunes economic stimulus as it braces for recent US administration

BANGKOK — China is fine-tuning policies to rev up its economy as it braces for doubtful relations with the United States under President-elect Donald Trump, giving manufacturers a 20% made-in-China worth advantage in sales to the Chinese government.

The moves arrive ahead of a top-level annual economic planning conference scheduled for next week that will assist set China’s way for the coming year.

The Ministry of Finance announced it is seeking community comment on the made-in-China schedule until Jan. 4. To qualify, products have to be made entirely in China, from the raw materials stage to the finished products, it said, although some components must just meet standards for a distribute of domestic-based production. Farm, forestry, minerals and fisheries products are excluded, the state-run Xinhua information Agency reported Friday.

Government procurement generally amounts to about 10% or more of business activity in major economies.

Under the program, companies will be given a 20% worth advantage, with the government making up the difference, part of a series of moves to underpin stronger sales that also includes promoting insurance hazard analysis and easier access to financing for e-commerce and tiny- and mid-sized “little giants” and “hidden champions.”

Shares in China have surged this week on expectations that the planning conference will profit more back for the slowing economy as a revival in exports helps to compensate for a sluggish property trade and subdued buyer spending. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong and the Shanghai Composite index both gained more than 2% this week.

Before that closed-door conference convenes in Beijing, Premier Li Qiang was due to hold a conference Monday with heads of 10 major international organizations including the globe financial institution, International Monetary pool and globe Trade Organization, the Foreign Ministry said in a notice on its website.

The themes of the assembly focus on promoting “global ordinary prosperity,” “upholding multilateralism” and making advances in China’s own reforms and modernization, it said.

Major changes may be unlikely as China’s leaders wait to view what Trump does.

“The policymakers would likely safety net policy room for the four-year period of the Trump administration,” economists at ANZ Research said in a update. Key areas to focus on will be boosting buyer spending and more assist for the property sector, it said.

China’s leaders set a target for financial expansion of “about 5%” for this year. In the first three quarters, growth averaged 4.8%, and has gradually slowed. Over the history few months, regulators have rolled out a slew of policies meant to assist reverse the downturn in the housing trade and inspire more spending by Chinese households that have been tightening purse strings since the pandemic.

Setting the tone ahead of next week’s meetings, a commentary in the ruling Communist event’s newspaper The People’s Daily downplayed the usual focus on conference growth targets, noting that the industrial boom that has made China the globe’s second-largest economy came at a “huge worth in resources and the surroundings.”

“If we do not shatter with the worship of speed … even if we temporarily boost the speed, we will detract from upcoming growth,” it said. “It is not that we cannot leave faster, but that we do not desire to.”

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AP Researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed.