Pursuits

With Growth Target at Risk, China Prepares for New Spending

A worker places collected waste on a tricycle at a commercial building construction site in Beijing.

Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
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China’s leadership is preparing fresh fiscal spending to ensure that signs of economic weakening don’t put their 2015 growth target out of reach, a danger that was underscored by a deterioration in manufacturing in July.

Ahead of the top leadership’s annual gathering at the Beidaihe seaside resort east of Beijing, the Communist Party’s Politburo pledged last week to make “pre-emptive” policy adjustments in the second half. Premier Li Keqiang highlighted one area targeted for spending will be a “severely outdated” underground pipe system in the nation’s expanding megacities.