China's top leaders gathered Tuesday to decide economic policies for 2007, a "crucial" year that will see a renewed focus on a fairer distribution of the country's growing wealth, state media and officials said.
On the agenda at the annual closed-door Central Economic Work Conference is the need to better share the benefits of China's spectacular economic development, according to academics familiar with ongoing policy debates.
"Earlier on, we attached more importance to growth but now the focus is increasingly on equity," said Yi Xianrong, a senior economist with the China Academy of Social Sciences, the top government think tank.
The conference is taking place amid increasing signals that China's impressive economic boom of recent years has been accompanied by a deepening divide between the rich and poor.
Even as China continues to be the world's fastest-growing major economy, the poorest 10 percent of the population have seen their incomes fall in absolute terms, the World Bank said last week.
Officials from both the Communist Party and government elite are meeting at the state-owned Jingxi Hotel in western Beijing, at a safe distance from public scrutiny.
A first day of talks wrapped up late in the afternoon Tuesday, a source close to the meeting said. No information was immediately available about what had been discussed.
While state-run media did not immediately report who took part in Tuesday's debate, in the past all top leaders have attended, including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.
As a prelude to the conference the Politburo, the ruling Communist Party's top decision-making body, convened last week, deciding what ought to be the key issues for economic policy making in the coming year.
"2007 is a crucial year for China's development and reform," the official Xinhua news agency said, summarising the conclusion of last week's meeting.
"Stable and rapid economic growth must be maintained (but) substantial progress must be made in shifting growth patterns from extensive to intensive and new measures must be taken to ensure the people's interests," it said.
The conference comes as the central government continues to struggle with efforts to slow the economy, which grew 10.7 percent in the first three quarters of 2006.
Previous economic conferences have typically lasted for about three days, with virtually no news emerging from the discussions until after they are over, at which time outlines of the conclusions will be made public.
"They won't give very detailed instruction about what to do and what not to do but there'll definitely be a big overall plan," said Song Guoqing, an analyst with the Chinese Center for Economic Research at Beijing University.
"For instance, they will make general decisions on whether or not to rein in investment and property prices but the decisions are flexible, and can be adjusted in the course of the year."
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