Given looming downward pressure and ongoing economic restructuring, a lower average annual growth target of 6.5 percent will be acceptable and attainable for the world's second largest economy in the next five years, according to analysts.
Chang Xiuze, a researcher with Tsinghua University and economist with a thinktank under the National Development and Reform Commission, said the policymakers should set a bottom line of 6.5-percent annual growth for 2016 to 2020 based on the current economic circumstance.
"The economy will be confronted with even higher downward pressure, and the old economic goal set at 7 percent will be harder to deliver under a falling potential economic growth rate," Chang said.
Tan Haojun, a prominent financial columnist, also advised economic planners to put the floor at 6.5 percent for economic growth.
Leaders of the Communist Party of China (CPC) are discussing an economic blueprint, namely the 13th Five-Year Plan, for the 2016-2020 period at the ongoing fifth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee. A growth target to direct economic and social development in the period is expected to be unveiled.
The previous five-year plan (2011-2015) set an average annual growth target of around 7 percent, which will no doubt to be fulfilled by the end of this year. Between 2011 and 2014, the economy expanded by an annual rate of 8 percent.
Economists believe Party leaders will lower the target amid the lingering economic slowdown and consider a less-than-7-percent growth rate acceptable to the economy.
Chang said China can still create enough jobs with 6.5-percent economic growth, and Tan believes the growth rate can ensure the country to fulfill its ambitious plan to double 2010 gross domestic product (GDP) and people's income by 2020.
The Chinese economy expanded 6.9 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2015, the first time the quarterly growth rate has dropped below 7 percent since the second quarter of 2009, but still in the lead among major economies around the world.
Chang attributed the slower growth to a shift in economic engines, shrinking work force and pollution control.
"The 'China Express' is in a period when old engines are losing strength and new ones have yet to function in full swing," he said.
China can no longer count on exports, investment and the property sector to drive its economy, he said. Slowing global recovery, intruding sovereign debts problems, weak external demand and rising trade protectionism will challenge export-oriented economies, while investment -- the old economic therapy -- is falling and becoming less effective for stimulating growth. The property sector, despite a warming, remains far from a complete recovery.
