Can China finally fix its economic model?

Is China’s latest Five-Year Plan about to reset its economic model and tackle the imbalances weighing on both the domestic and global economy?

Speculation always builds ahead of a new Five-Year Plan. But this time, the stakes feel higher. With growth slowing, debt risks lingering and external tensions elevated, could this Plan mark a genuine turning point?

That is what Julian Evans-Pritchard will be watching for as the National People’s Congress opens in Beijing on Thursday. On The Weekly Briefing, he joins Group Chief Economist Neil Shearing to talk to David Wilder about the outlook for China’s domestic and external imbalances and to address the key questions, not least how this adjustment will proceed, how willing its trading partners will remain to absorb China's goods surplus and whether this all risks tipping the world into crisis?

Elsewhere in the episode, Megan Fisher from our Commodities team revisits the cocoa price boom she had long warned was unsustainable. Now that prices have collapsed, she sifts through the fallout to explain what comes next and whether chocoholics are likely to see any relief.

Events and analysis referenced in this episode

China NPC Drop-In 
https://www.capitaleconomics.com/events/china-drop-key-takeaways-npc-and-new-five-year-plan

UK Spring Statement Drop-In
https://www.capitaleconomics.com/events/uk-drop-chancellors-spring-statement-fiscal-signals-political-risks-market-implications

US non-farm payrolls preview
https://www.capitaleconomics.com/publications/us-employment-report-preview/health-care-likely-be-key-driver-payrolls-again