China made a rare decision not to set a target for its economic growth for 2020 due to uncertainties about the impact of the coronavirus.
"I would like to point out that we have not set a specific target for economic growth this year," Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said in an English-language text of the work report delivered on Friday.
"This is because our country will face some factors that are difficult to predict in its development due to the great uncertainty regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and the world economic and trade environment," Li said.
Employees work on a drilling machine production line at a factory in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province
The remarks are part of China's annual parliamentary meeting, which was delayed by about two months this year due to the coronavirus outbreak that began in China last year and has since spread globally.
As a result, some analysts expected ahead of the report that Li might share a GDP target for a timeframe other than 2020 itself. Last year, GDP expanded by 6.1%, just making the official target range of 6% to 6.5%.
China's economy contracted by 6.8% in the first quarter, while unemployment has stayed near historic highs. Although data have shown some recovery in April, officials have publicly aired concerns about a drag on growth from the coronavirus' spread overseas.
Economists have cut their growth forecasts for the official GDP — a figure that many economists often doubt. In late March, Beijing-based China International Capital Corporation (CICC) notably lowered its real GDP growth estimate to 2.6%, down from 6.1% previously.