Premier Li Qiang formally announced the growth goal, alongside the overall budget and key government policies for 2024, as China's annual National People's Congress (NPC) kicked off Tuesday.
Addressing thousands of delegates, Li warned that "achieving this year's targets will not be easy".
"The foundation for China's sustained economic recovery and growth is not solid enough," he said.
Last year's NPC saw President Xi Jinping anointed for a historic third term, cementing his rule as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.
A year on, thousands of delegates attending the gathering must grapple with a litany of economic and security challenges, including a protracted property sector crisis, soaring youth unemployment, and a global slowdown that has hammered demand for Chinese goods.
- 'Risks and dangers' -
The five percent goal is in line with last year's growth, but is a far cry from the double-digit expansion that for years drove the Chinese economy.
"We do not consider the five percent growth target to be conservative, we actually think it is ambitious," Wang Tao, Chief China Economist at UBS, told AFP.
"The property market has continued to fall and not yet reached the bottom, which exerts downward pressure on the economy," she added, saying that would have a "negative impact on local government finance and spending, and household wealth and consumer spending".
Li in his speech warned there remained "lingering risks and hidden dangers" still present in the economy.
Investors have called for much greater action from the state to shore up the flagging economy.
But Beijing has for years been reluctant to confront the pressures on its economy head-on with a major bailout, fearful of putting too much strain on fragile state coffers, and analysts don't see any reason to think that will change soon.
A separate budget report indicated China's military spending -- second only to the United States' -- would rise by 7.2 percent.
China vowed to stand firm on Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory, promising to "resolutely oppose" any efforts towards securing the island's independence.
- Investors spooked -
The island has long been a source of tensions with the United States, which is Taiwan's primary supplier of arms.
Washington has also urged Beijing to do more to protect the rights of foreign investors in China, who were spooked last year by a number of raids on a string of big-name consulting, research and due diligence firms.
Beijing in recent months revised a law dramatically expanding its definition of espionage.
In the run-up to the NPC the legislature's top body approved a broad and vaguely worded revision to China's state secrets law -- "a clear signal of security's importance for this year's governance agenda", Diana Choyleva, chief economist at Enodo Economics, told AFP.
In a bid to assuage investors' fears, Beijing on Tuesday promised to open "new channels" for foreign trade, as well as cut tariffs on advanced technology.
But deepening the sense of China as an information black hole, Beijing on Monday said it would scrap a post-NPC press conference by the premier -- in place since 1993 and a rare chance for international media to quiz one of the country's top officials.
- 'Weather the storm' -
Armed police and security personnel are ubiquitous on Beijing's streets this week as thousands of delegates descend on the capital for the "Two Sessions" -- a carefully choreographed week-long gathering of the NPC and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
Many of its major decisions would have been made weeks in advance, in closed-door meetings of the Communist Party.
Nevertheless, the topics that are up for discussion and the tone of the speeches allow for key insights into what's keeping China's rulers up at night.
"The NPC is not obsolete or irrelevant," analyst Nis Grunberg told AFP.
"It is an important platform for the leadership to communicate its key priorities."
The first of the "Two Sessions" began on Monday afternoon, and the almost 3,000-member NPC will hold daily sessions until next Monday.
Analysts agree that stuck between deep reforms to restart economic growth and efforts to strengthen the state's power, China's policymakers have little room for manoeuvre this week.
The government may well "double down on the current direction of elevating national security measures on all fronts," Ho-fung Hung, a professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins University, told AFP.
"It will not help the economy, but could help the party-state weather the storm of economic crisis."
China's key objectives for 2024
Beijing (AFP) March 5, 2024 -
Chinese Premier Li Qiang delivered the country's annual government work report on Tuesday, laying out the ruling Communist Party's key aims for the year ahead.
Here are some of the report's highlights:
- Economy -
China has set an economic growth target of "around five percent" in 2024, the same goal as last year but far lower than previous decades.
Beijing has struggled to sustain its rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic as a property sector crisis and flagging consumption weigh on growth.
Li told the gathered CCP cadres, including President Xi Jinping, that the country would seek "steady growth" in consumer spending and "defuse risks in real estate (and) local government debt".
Beijing will also remove more barriers to foreign investment and "appropriately cut import tariffs on advanced technology and equipment", Li said at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.
The Chinese economy expanded by 5.2 percent in 2023, according to official statistics -- one of its lowest rates in years.
- Defence -
China's military spending will rise 7.2 percent to 1.665 trillion yuan ($231.4 billion) this year, according to a separate budget report.
The figure is broadly in line with the announced increases in previous annual work reports.
However, some Western analysts believe Beijing ploughs a significant amount of extra money into its armed forces without officially disclosing it.
The spending increase comes as China's relations with several neighbouring states show signs of strain.
Tensions have simmered in recent years as Beijing has sought to assert its territorial claims over Taiwan and disputed areas in the South China Sea.
- Taiwan -
On Taiwan, Li said China would "resolutely oppose separatist activities" aimed at the self-ruled island's independence and "external interference".
He said Beijing would seek the "peaceful development" of ties with Taiwan but did not commit to "peaceful unification" as mentioned in previous years.
China claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and has refused to rule out using force to bring it under its control one day.
It has maintained a hard line towards Taiwan's ruling party since its candidate Lai Ching-te won the island's presidential election in January.
It has branded the president-elect a "separatist" and sent warplanes and naval vessels around the island on a near-daily basis.
Relations with Taipei sank further last month when two Chinese sailors died in an incident involving the Taiwanese coast guard near the Taipei-administered island of Kinmen.
- Young people -
The work report said Beijing will "strengthen measures to promote the employment of young people", an issue at the heart of China's economic malaise.
Joblessness among people aged between 16 and 24 has spiked since the pandemic and become a politically sensitive topic for the Communist Party.
The national statistics bureau stopped publishing the youth unemployment rate for several months from last summer as the figure soared above 20 percent.
It began publishing the rate again in December after adjusting its calculation methods, with around 15 percent of young people recorded as being out of a job that month.
Tuesday's report said Beijing would "apply a combination of measures to ensure stability in employment and promote income growth".
Nationwide, it targeted over 12 million new urban jobs and a surveyed urban unemployment rate across all working demographics of "around 5.5 percent".
It also promised better healthcare and social security services and a "proactive national strategy" in response to the rapid ageing of the country's population.
- Diplomacy -
Li said China would stick to its "independent foreign policy of peace and... peaceful development".
But he added that Beijing would "remain firm in opposing all hegemonic, high-handed and bullying acts", without referring to any countries by name.
China has clashed with the United States and other Western powers in recent years over technology, trade, human rights and other issues.
Its foreign ministry has previously used such language in response to acts by Washington that China deems a constraint on its development.
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