# data[].attributes.body
There are many ‘Zombie Firms’ in China as of right now. Zombie firms are firms that needs bailouts in order to continue it’s operations, or it could also be an company which is in debts that is only able to repay the interest. China intends to get rid of these zombie firms which will result in the retrenchment of 5-6 million state workers over the next two decades, To make up for this huge loss of jobs, China will create 10 million new jobs by addressing zombie firms. China plans to hold the unemployment rate below 4.5% in 2016. Even though it is an increase from the reported rate of 4% in 2015, these statistics are unreliable as China often releases official statistics that are untrue, it is generally accepted that 4% is not the true unemployment rate of China.

# data[].attributes.headline
Concepts that are applicable to our topics

# data[].attributes.subject
Concepts that are applicable to our topics

# data[].attributes.body
-Inflation Rate

-Gross Domestic Product(GDP)

-Unemployment

# data[].attributes.body
(Unemployment)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
BEIJING (Reuters) - China faces a tough battle to keep its economy growing by at least 6.5 percent over the next five years while creating more jobs and restructuring inefficient industries, Premier Li Keqiang said as he opened China's annual parliament on Saturday.

Growth of 6.5 percent would mark a ripping pace for most countries but would be the slowest in China in a quarter century as world's No. 2 economy grapples with gyrating financial markets, softening global trade and efforts to reduce environmental degradation.

"Our country's development faces more and greater difficulties ... so we must be prepared for a tough battle," Li said.

In 2016, Beijing will aim for an economic growth rate between 6.5-7 percent, as Reuters previously reported, with a consumer inflation target of around 3 percent and money supply expansion of around 13 percent, according to a series of draft reports ahead of the opening of the 12-day parliament.

Many investors had been hoping China would post an aggressive target for fiscal spending to prop growth.

But the draft goal of running a fiscal deficit equivalent to 3 percent of GDP, while up from the previous year's target of 2.3 percent, still disappointed some who had hoped for a number closer to 4.

"The budget deficit of 3 percent is not enough and should be increased," economist and former central bank advisor Yu Yongding told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting.

Related Coverage

Zhou Hao, economist at Commerzbank in Singapore, said the low figure may reflect concerns that a higher number would signal tolerance for another spree of debt-fueled growth such as that Beijing embarked on in 2009.

Moody's recently downgraded the outlook for Chinese sovereign debt, a move Chinese regulators said was unjustified.

"The pressure from rating agencies could be something China has to consider, indicating that China is cautious on rolling out large infrastructure investment that could result in long-term debt issues," Zhou said in a email.

KILL THE ZOMBIES

The reports provide a blueprint of China's aspirations for the next five years across a range of sectors and measures.

They show Beijing trying to strike a balance between holding up growth and restructuring underperforming industries, where so-called "zombie firms" are responsible for much of the country's corporate debt overhang left over from the 2009 stimulus.

In lead up to parliament, the government flagged major job losses in key coal and steel industries. Overall, China aims to lay off 5-6 million state workers over the next two to three years, two sources said, in Beijing's boldest retrenchment program in almost two decades.

Li said the country will create 10 million new jobs, address zombie firms through mergers, bankruptcies and debt deals, and hold the urban registered unemployment rate below 4.5 percent in 2016.

Seeking to improve the environment, Beijing aims to cap total energy consumption at 5 billion tonnes of standard coal by 2020 and set targets for improving water efficiency.

China will increase military spending by 7.6 percent this year, its lowest increase in six years, as it pursues a modernization plan that will shrink staffing.

Unlike previous years, the documents did not mention a specific target for trade figures, having missed their goals repeatedly in recent years.

Weighed down by sluggish demand at home and abroad, industrial overcapacity and faltering investment, China's economic growth slowed to 6.9 percent in 2015.

Economists widely expect it to cool further to a still-healthy rate of around 6.5 percent this year.

But slower growth raises the specter of social unrest, as the transformation from low-end manufacturing to high technology and services leads to rising structural unemployment.

FIXING MARKETS

Beijing hopes the country's financial markets can play a stronger role in supporting the economic transformation.

"We will move forward with the reform of stock and bond markets and increase the level of rule of law in their development, promote the sound development of the multilevel capital market, and ensure that the proportion of direct financing is increased," Li said.

The reassurance comes after Chinese markets erupted in 2015, with the stock indexes crashing, the yuan sliding sharply, and property markets in major cities spiked while smaller cities lagged.

Those moves prompted heavy-handed intervention from the government, leading some to question whether the Chinese Communist Party was capable of following through on its commitment to let markets play a "decisive role" in setting the price of assets.

Li said China will open its capital account in an "orderly manner" and continue to improve the exchange rate regime in 2016.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
monetary / fiscal policy / policy makers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
China aims to maintain growth pace, fend off unemployment in five-year plan

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
China faces a tough battle to keep its economy growing by at least 6.5 percent over the next five years while creating more jobs and restructuring inefficient industries, Premier Li Keqiang said as he opened China's annual parliament on Saturday.

# data[].attributes.body
After the well-known Chinese economic reform led by Deng Xiao Ping, the Chinese government have shifted from having a planned economy to a socialist market economy in 1978.This means the government will allow privatisation and free-market oriented Special Economic Zones, which made a huge impact on China’s GDP growth, increasing exponentially from 1978 to 2008. Starting from 2009, the growth start to slow down whereby the trend continued till today. However, official data provided by the Chinese government is shunned by many non-Chinese economists as unreliable and inaccurate, to the extent where calculating electricity usage of the country is more accurate and reliable.

Nonetheless, China is indeed experiencing slow GDP growth in recent years. Official figures shows that services has a 10.4% greater output compared to manufacturing, thus attributing to the shifting focus of industrial sectors by demand. This gives a clear picture of the vulnerability in China’s current economy, which was built by an unsustainable economic growth.

# data[].attributes.body
(GDP)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ON THE face of it, this should be a triumphant day for China. It reported that the economy grew by 6.9% last year, just a shade lower than 2014's 7.3% pace. That is some achievement, given the turmoil in emerging markets and the sheer size ($10 trillion) of the economy (6.9% growth now yields more additional output than 14.2% growth did back in 2007). But the plunging Chinese stockmarket, the global commodity collapse and downward pressure on the yuan have given rise to a prevalent view that reality is grimmer. If the data are so strong, why are so many people so down on China?

The most obvious answer is that no one much believes the numbers. China has long been suspected of massaging data to smooth its growth trend, under-reporting GDP when overheated and over-reporting it during lulls. Judging by the eerie stability of key indicators recently, China's statisticians appear to have been doing just that. In year-on-year terms, growth over the past six quarters has been 7.2%, 7.2%, 7%, 7%, 6.9% and 6.8%. Such a tight clustering is improbable. Private surveys suggest that growth was much lumpier last year, with the economy initially soft, then picking up in the final months thanks to stimulus policies. Using a composite of alternative data from electricity usage to car sales, many analysts reckon last year's growth rate was really 5-6%-not bad, though certainly not as buoyant as the government says.

Headline growth is, however, only the first of the concerns. Look under the hood at the composition of Chinese growth, and the picture that emerges is of extreme weakness in certain parts of the economy. Heavy industry is in bad shape, blighted by overcapacity and falling demand. Service sectors from finance to health care are much more robust. But services, by their nature, are mainly delivered locally; China is able to provide more of what it needs by itself, not through imports. That is cold comfort for other countries, especially commodity producers, which had come to count on ever-stronger Chinese demand. Official data are admirably clear on this bifurcation of the economy: services output grew by 11.6% year-on-year in nominal terms in the first nine months of 2015, whereas manufacturing grew by just 1.2%.

The biggest fear about Chinese growth is that much worse is still to come. Total debt has gone from about 150% of GDP before the global financial crisis in 2008 to nearly 250% today. Increases in indebtedness of that magnitude have been a forerunner of financial woes in other countries. Cracks are beginning to appear in China: capital outflows have surged, bankruptcies are occurring more frequently and bad loans in the banking sector are rising. It is all but certain that more pain lies ahead, though quite how much and how it will play out are matters for debate. If there is one thing all can agree on about China's economy, it is that the gap between official data and market perceptions has widened to a chasm.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The worries about China's slowing growth

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ON THE face of it, this should be a triumphant day for China. It reported that the economy grew by 6.9% last year, just a shade lower than 2014's 7.3% pace. That is some achievement, given the turmoil in emerging markets and the sheer size ($10 trillion) of the economy (6.9% growth now yields more additional output than 14.2% growth did back in 2007).

# data[].attributes.body
The sharp increase in the Consumer prices in February led to food prices accelerating. The Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) rose to 2.3%, faster than January percentage, which was 1.8%. February’s GPI is only temporary according to Grace Ng, a greater China economist at J.P Morgan. The increase was partially due to Chinese New Year related issues. The one week long Lunar New Year (began on February 7) increased the demand of fresh food annually which helps to increase the prices. The cold weather this year also played a part by causing tightening in supply of vegetables which made the prices higher. It is stated that ‘it would take a big food supply shock or energy price spike for the CPI Inflation to cross the central bank’s 3 percent inflation red line’ according to Tim Condon, head of Asia research at ING. This shows that the inflation rate will remain stable despite the increase in demand for certain products and the surge in prices for them. It is said that it would be worrying for the PPI trends to impact companies as if the overcapacity production continues, it would keep deflation in place for a while and this would in turn affect the ‘company’s profit and sales revenue’.

# data[].attributes.body
(Inflation)