Premier Li Keqiang delivered the Government Work Report to the third session of the 13th National People’s Congress in Beijing on May 22. According to the report, China will ensure it achieves the development goals of winning the battle against poverty and completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects this year, though setting no specific economic growth target for 2020.

As China has turned the tide on the COVID-19 epidemic, the country’s economy is gradually recovering, although internal and external risks remain severe.

Due to the increasing uncertainty of the pandemic’s trajectory internationally and the global economic and trade situation, China’s development is facing some unpredictable factors. As such, the report did not propose specific targets for the annual economic growth rate, explained Zhang Zhanbin, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and dean of the School of Marxism at the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC.

“Proposing no specific economic growth targets does not mean that economic growth is not valued,” said Fang Lan, a deputy of the National People’s Congress and deputy director of the Northwest Institute of Historical Environment and Socio-Economic Development at Shaanxi Normal University. The report pointed out that the stability of economic operations is of overall concern. Stabilizing employment, protecting people’s wellbeing and resolutely winning the tough battle against poverty all require economic development.

“Employment” is a high-frequency word in the report. China will prioritize stabilizing employment and ensuring people’s livelihoods this year, aiming to create more than nine million new urban jobs, according to the report. Yang Zhenbin, a member of the CPPCC National Committee and Party secretary of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said that stabilizing employment is the basis for stabilizing people’s livelihoods. College graduates are the main demographic seeking employment. As such, achieving fuller employment and creating better quality jobs for college students is pivotal to stabilizing employment.

As epidemic prevention and control becomes a new norm, China has also focused on supply-side structural reform and facilitated high-quality development through reform and opening up, said Gao Ling, an NPC deputy and president of Xi’an Polytechnic University.

Zhong Ying, a member of the CPPCC National Committee and a research fellow at the Institute of Contemporary China Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said that China’s economic and social development is facing unprecedented risks and challenges at present and in the near future, but the goals and tasks related to people’s livelihoods are becoming more clear, and the security of basic livelihood is also strengthening.

“When coordinating epidemic prevention and control along with economic and social development, the greater the difficulties and challenges, the greater the need to deepen reform, break down institutional barriers and stimulate endogenous development momentum,” said Zheng Bingwen, director of the World Social Security Center at CASS.

In the face of changes in the external circumstances, Zheng said that we must unswervingly expand opening up, stabilize the supply chain and the industrial chain, and promote reform and development by opening up. At the same time, China’s domestic demand has great potential. It is necessary to deepen supply-side structural reform, prioritize the people’s livelihoods, and effectively integrate investment expansion and a consumption boost.