The Man With a Plan to Revive Chinese Growth

China’s premier-elect, Li Keqiang, ran a province of 93 million people that endured three deadly fire disasters and an HIV blood scandal on his watch. His run of bad luck as Governor of Henan from 1998 to 2004 earned him the nickname Three-Fires Li in the foreign press. Beijing’s Communist officialdom, however, has high hopes for Li, an award-winning economist for his work on urbanization, in his new role as the country’s top economic policymaker.

In March, Li, 57, will inherit an economy forecast to grow at 7 percent in 2013, the slowest pace in at least 23 years, according to investment fund company Pimco. It will take major economic reforms to arrest the slowdown, encourage growth of globally competitive private sector companies, and address a widening income gap. China’s new leadership team, led by incoming Communist Party General Secretary and President-elect Xi Jinping, needs to roll back the dominant state-owned enterprises that receive the majority of loans from government-controlled banks, according to the World Bank’s “China 2030” study, which Li has publicly endorsed. Another task: Allow the markets—not bureaucrats—to determine the prices for everything from bank loans to raw materials.