Beijing (AFP)

Caution in the face of uncertainty: China is targeting 6% growth this year as its economy continues to recover from the epidemic shock of 2020, its Prime Minister announced on Friday, in front of the parliament which must increase the pressure on Hong Kong.

The first country affected by the coronavirus which has paralyzed its economy, China gave up in 2020 to set an annual growth target, a rare decision in the history of the Asian giant.

This year, "China will continue to face many development risks and challenges," Prime Minister Li Keqiang warned at the opening of the annual plenary session of parliament.

"But the economic fundamentals that will support long-term growth remain unchanged," he assured the some 3,000 deputies in the assembly, mostly with their faces covered with a blue mask.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), for its part, expects growth of 8.1% for the world's second-largest economy - a figure mathematically inflated after a gloomy 2020.

In full recovery, a growth target by Beijing below 8% may disappoint investors and "lead to volatility" in the markets, warns analyst Ken Cheung, of the Mizuho bank.

But a too "ambitious" objective would have had "harmful effects", with Chinese officials tempted to make "excessive investments", synonymous with debt, to "inflate the GDP", underlines Mr. Cheung.

- "Stay competitive" -

After unprecedented containment measures that weighed on activity, China experienced a historic decline in growth in the first quarter of 2020 (-6.8%).

The gradual improvement in sanitary conditions from spring, however, allowed gross domestic product (GDP) to rebound.

And China finally recorded positive growth last year (+ 2.3%), in stark contrast to most other countries that have fallen into recession - but the lowest score for the world's second-largest economy since 1976.

Li Keqiang also refrained from giving a growth figure for the next five years, while the main orientations of the next five-year plan must be presented by Thursday to the National People's Congress (ANP, the Chinese parliament submitted to the Party Communist).

Beijing aims for China to become a "high-income economy" by 2025 by further developing industries with higher added value such as new technologies, underlines analyst Rajiv Biswas, of the IHS Markit firm, for AFP.

This strategy should allow the country to "remain competitive despite rising labor costs in the manufacturing sector," warns Mr. Biswas.

- Hong Kong on the agenda -

And the Chinese government expects "domestic consumption to play a bigger role" in the economy.

It remains today very dependent on exports, a weakness at a time when the main customers of the Asian giant (United States and Europe) remain largely affected by the virus.

In addition, Beijing has set itself the goal of creating some 11 million jobs this year, a figure identical to that of 2019, before the pandemic.

A criterion which does not provide any information on the number of jobs destroyed because of the crisis.

China is also targeting an unemployment rate of 5.5%, after 5.6% last year.

Again, this figure paints an incomplete picture of the economic situation.

In China, unemployment is calculated for urbanites alone, that is to say, it does not take into account the nearly 300 million migrant workers of rural origin, weakened by the crisis.

On the eve of the parliamentary session, Beijing also announced a project for electoral reform in Hong Kong, which paves the way for the possible marginalization of pro-democracy opposition candidates in the semi-autonomous territory.

The announcement comes nearly a year after a national security law in Hong Kong, imposed by Beijing, came into effect following huge protests in 2019 against an extradition law and the Communist regime.

© 2021 AFP