China predicts 5% growth for 2023, $224 billion budgeted for defence

On Sunday, China pegged its growth target for 2023 at around 5% as the pandemic-hit economy looks to bounce back from three years of COVID-19 restrictions that put millions under perpetual lockdown, slowed consumption, and pushed the country’s growth rate down to 3%, the slowest in decades.
Outgoing Premier Li Keqiang announced the goal in a speech to open the annual session of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, saying: “We must prioritize the recovery and expansion of consumption.”
“China’s economy is making steady reforms and demonstrating enormous potential and momentum for further growth,” Li said in his address while handing over a government work report to nearly 3,000 delegates at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. More than 12 million jobs were added in 2022, the jobs report said, with the urban unemployment rate falling to 5.5%.
President Xi Jinping, who is set for a third presidential term, attended the session along with China’s top leadership. Li will end his decade as the country’s premier, who was in charge of the economy at the end of the eight-day NPC. China’s GDP growth forecast for 2023 is in particular focus as the country emerges from draconian zero-Covid measures that were lifted in December.
Observers say that China’s annual growth target is closely monitored and scrutinized, as the legitimacy of China’s ruling and authoritarian Communist Party is based on providing steady economic growth and social stability.