Economic work will focus on investment and growth

In accordance with the Communist Party of China Central Committee's focus on economic work, the Central Economic Work Conference in December focused on five major aspects of the economy.

First, the CEWC indicated macro policy in 2019 will be relatively loose compared with last year, and fiscal policy arrangements will be made in relation to financial debt and deficit. It said monetary policy in the first half of 2018 was steady and neutral but, deleting neutral, it used only "steady" to describe monetary policy for 2019.

Last year, the central bank reduced the reserve requirement ratio four times and, apart from introducing financial credit control tools, it also released liquidity of up to 6 trillion yuan ($884.15 billion). Macro policy will follow the same path this year, as such a policy is expected to boost the economy in times of continuing downturn.