Xi said to put population over growth in China economic plan

Beijing

FACING a demographic time bomb that threatens China's economic rise, President Xi Jinping is considering shifting his priority to population growth, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Mr Xi's economic planners may for the first time emphasise "population policies" over gross domestic product in the country's next development blueprint, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. The focus sets the stage for a host of rule changes regarding health, pensions, social welfare and possibly lifting the caps on children some families can have, the person said.

More than three decades into an industrial boom that has created the world's second-largest economy, China is struggling to get rich before it grows old. The working-age population shrank for the first time in at least two decades last year as growth slowed, echoing Japan's downturn in the late 1990s. As part of the shift, the Communist Party may lower its hard growth target of 7 per cent to a ran…