China's annual economic work conference is underway in Beijing. The closed-door meeting will set the national economic agenda for next year. Making economic progress while maintaining stability will remain the government's top priority.
Experts predict officials will focus their attention on four areas -- sustaining GDP growth, pushing through tax reforms, introducing state-owned enterprise reforms, and implementing real estate reforms.
Sustaining steady GDP growth will be more difficult next year, given the combined pressures of inflation and RMB devaluation. So the government's GDP growth target may be set at six-point-five percent, 0.2 percentage points lower than that of this year.
Personal income tax reforms will take effect next year. They may not be able to reduce the overall tax burden, but will improve income distribution and promote consumption.
Supply-side structural reforms are set to continue, with state-owned enterprises further reducing excess industrial capacity. Experts have also suggested increasing private ownership in SOEs, in order to make them more competitive.
For the year ahead, China also plans to implement more real estate reforms, that will reduce housing inventory in mid-sized and smaller cities, while curbing investments in bigger cities.
