扩大中等收入群体(kuòdà zhōngděng shōurù qúntĭ): Expanding the middle-income group

On Monday, President Xi Jinping presided over the 13th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs, during which he stressed more efforts are needed to expand the middle-income group, improve the income distribution system and strengthen intellectual property protection.

It is generally believed that the middle-income group plays a key role in a society's economy, politics and culture, and the proportion of the middle-income group in a country reflects the country's economic strength and level of social stability.

In recent years, the central government has paid great attention to expanding the middle-income group, and the Government Work Report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang to the top legislature in March, emphasized the need to improve the income distribution system, narrow the income gap and increase the proportion of the middle-income group in the population. The middle-income group has higher and various consumption demands, which is of great significance to China's bid to make consumption a sustainable driver of the economy. And from the perspective of the macroeconomy, expanding the middle-income group can help promote supply-side reforms which emphasize restructuring of industries.