Chinese leaders approved an economic blueprint for next year that emphasizes tackling long-term problems and reflects a realization that debt and investment can no longer power the world’s second-largest economy.
The plan, laid out at a closed-door conclave of senior party officials led by President Xi Jinping, comes as the country’s massive buildup of debt and legions of factories pumping out unwanted goods astride towers of empty apartments have become severe drags on economic output.
At the annual year-end meeting of China’s top economic mandarins, called the Central Economic Work Conference, senior officials who gathered at the heavily guarded Jingxi Hotel in western Beijing considered prospects that the country’s sluggish growth could linger as the old model has reached its limits, according to a senior Chinese official with direct knowledge of the meeting.
