THE Communist Party of China’s leadership began a four-day meeting today that is expected to lay out a strategy for self-sufficient economic growth.

The third plenary session of the 20th central committee in Beijing is expected to focus on improving the country’s financial system’s and technological innovation to support China’s continuing drive towards modernisation.

It follows China posting a healthy 5 per cent economic growth rate for the first half of 2024.

Early this year, President Xi Jinping called for accelerated efforts to build a modern financial system with Chinese characteristics.

Speaking at the opening of a study session at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance), he said was important to develop the country’s financial systems to better serve the economy.

Tian Xuan, associate dean of Tsinghua University’s PBC school of finance, said one of the core objectives of China’s financial reform should be building a modern system that efficiently serves the economy.

Mr Tian, who is also a membe of the National People’s Congress, the country’s top legislature, said: “Our financial markets are still developing and not yet mature. We need the government to play its role well to correct market failures.”

He added that he expected the plenary session to introduce reforms aimed at further developing venture capital — investment funds that put money into startups for long-term growth and are among the key accelerators of technological innovation.

Meanwhile, the National Bureau of Statistics said today that China’s gross domestic product had grown by a healthy 5 per cent in the first half of 2024.

Figures released by the bureau showed China’s value-added industrial output increasing by 6 per cent in the first half of this year compared with the same period of 2023, while in the first quarter, it rose by 6.1 per cent from a year earlier. 

The first half of the year also saw retail sales rise by 3.7 per cent compared with the same period of 2023, while in the first quarter, they were up by 4.7 per cent on a year earlier. 

In the January-June period, fixed-asset investment, a gauge of spending on items such as infrastructure, property, machinery and equipment, grew by 3.9 per cent compared with a year earlier. 

The surveyed urban jobless rate came in at 5 per cent in June, the same as the previous month, according to the statistics body.