chinas highestprofile political meeting of the year concluded on thursday with the government laying out economic plans to manage risks now that a recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is well underwayheres what we learned from the weeklong gathering of the national peoples congress in beijingchina wont drive global growth in 2021after posting the only expansion of any major economy last year the government signaled china wont be the worlds only growth engine in 2021 instead it wants to focus on making the domestic expansion more sustainable by reducing debt levels and encouraging companies to be more innovativea target of above 6 per cent growth in gross domestic product this year is wellbelow the 84 per cent increase predicted by economists premier li keqiang told reporters on thursday the target isnt low and reflects uncertainty about the economic rebound in china and the world as well as the need for more stable expansion domestically president xi jinping told political delegates a higher target could be set but we are leaving some room so that we are able to focus more on highquality growth according to xinhua news agencythe government did not follow suggestions from some congress representatives to set a quantitative target for money supply or amend the gdp growth target this year because such targets and policies are made after careful research and discussion by the party central committee sun guojun a senior official at the state council research office told reporters in a briefing on fridaydue to last years low base caused by the pandemic the target can be reached even if theres no quarteronquarter expansion for the rest of the year the growth rate could be surpassed by other large economies such as india which contracted last year while a large us fiscal stimulus means the growth gap between the worlds two largest economies will narrowmembers of a military band sit in their seats prior to the closing session of the national peoples congress photo getty imageschina reboundthe low target is somewhat of a concession to officials who have longargued for abolishing the target as it encourages local governments to engage in wasteful debtfunded investment projects an easytoreach target sets a baseline for the economy while giving local officials an opportunity to focus more on longterm reforms such as cutting corporate debt levels improving public services and investing in hitech sectorsfiscal support to remain highbeijing is targeting a smaller budget deficit this year down to 32 per cent of gdp from 36 per cent last year but that doesnt mean its cutting back on spendingfiscal pullbackthe effective deficit or gap between government spending on services and revenue raised from taxes and fees will fall by just 09 percentage points from last year according to estimates from goldman sachs group inc the quota given to local governments to issue bonds for investment projects was reduced by a lessthanexpected 100 billion yuan and unspent funds left over from bond issuance last year could be deployed to make up