China's ruling Communist Party will hold a key meeting in July to set its mid- to long-term economic policy, the country's state-run media said Tuesday, as the Asian powerhouse faces challenges, including a prolonged property sector crisis.
The third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee was widely expected to be held in the fall of last year following a twice-a-decade party congress in 2022. However, it was delayed, possibly due to difficulties in coordinating policies to cope with the real estate sector problem and a personnel reshuffle.
The upcoming session will "primarily study issues concerning further comprehensively deepening reform and advancing Chinese modernization," the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The decision to hold the plenum was made at a meeting of the party's Central Committee Political Bureau on Tuesday, presided over by leader Xi Jinping, according to the report.
The meeting cautioned against challenges, such as insufficient demand and an external environment that is "more complicated, grimmer and more uncertain," Xinhua said.
"The country should front-load efforts to effectively put the established macro policies in place and well implement a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy," the news agency said.
The meeting emphasized the cultivation of emerging industries, leveraging advanced technologies to empower the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, and actively developing venture capital, with a focus on high-tech sectors like electric vehicles and artificial intelligence, Xinhua said.
Observers are also closely monitoring how the upcoming party session will treat former foreign and defense ministers Qin Gang and Li Shangfu, who were removed from their posts last year without any official explanation. They are still members of the party's Central Committee.
The Communist Party typically holds seven plenums over a five-year cycle. Important decisions have been made during previous third plenary sessions, including the adoption of the reform and opening-up policy in 1978 and the easing of the country's one-child policy in 2013.
