China’s annual gathering of the National People’s Congress started on March 5 and will dominate the attention of the leadership over the next ten days. The “two conferences” period always produces a flurry of policy announcements, targets, and declared objectives for Chinese policy-makers. Most significantly so far, long-standing rhetoric concerning China’s exchange rate management was altered in the government work report. The two sessions may also produce new signals concerning the severity of China’s tightening toward the property sector and non-banks, as well as the fiscal impulse and emerging SOE reform efforts.
