China sets lowest economic growth target in decades, ahead of Trump summit
By John Liu, CNN
Beijing/Hong Kong (CNN) — China set its lowest economic growth target in decades on Thursday, announcing it would aim for 4.5-5% expansion for 2026, as the world’s second-largest economy grapples with weak domestic demand and an uncertain global outlook.
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, declined 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.
“Over the past year, the Chinese economy has proved remarkably resilient, forging ahead against headwinds,” Chinese Premier Li Qiang, the country’s No 2 official, said Thursday at the opening of the annual assembly of China’s rubber-stamp 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.”
Over the week-long meeting ahead, nearly 2,900 delegates will approve China’s next “Five-Year Plan,” a policy blueprint aimed at guiding government priorities for the next few years to cement the country’s status as a global tech superpower.
The meeting comes weeks before Trump’s visit to Beijing, where Chinese leader Xi Jinping is set to host him for a three-day summit covering trade, technology and Taiwan, among other issues.
After launching its economic reforms in the late 1970s, China experienced nearly three decades of mostly double-digit growth, overtaking Japan in 2010 to become the world’s second-largest economy. But its momentum has slowed over the past decade, exacerbated by stringent pandemic controls, while regional rival India has surpassed it as the fastest-growing major economy.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Joyce Jiang and Fred He in Beijing contributed to this report.
