Xi hails 'new era' for China at opening of Communist Party congress

Chinese president Xi Jinping opened the Communist Party Congress with a three-hour speech on Wednesday in which he pledged to lead the country into a "new era", lowering trade barriers and deepening financial sector reforms.

The week-long congress is taking place in Beijing and is where much of the country’s policies are discussed and decided for the next five years, with the event culminating in the selection of the party’s executive committee.

As well as outlining broad plans for the economy, Xi pledged to keep up battle against pollution, with “a long way to go in protecting the environment”, and identified corruption as the “greatest threat” the Communist Party faced within China.

On industry, he said the country would "move up to the medium-high end of the global value chain", fostering "a number of world-class advanced manufacturing clusters".

Regulation will be underpinned by monetary policy and macro-prudential policy, such that interest rates and exchange rates will become "more market-based", while a crack-down on shadow banking has been launched and deleveraging of state-owned enterprises will be given a higher priority.

Building on his goal of attaining a “moderately prosperous society” by 2020, Xi outlined a new long term vision for China to become a “great modern socialist country” by 2050 with rule of law, innovative companies, a clean environment, expanding middle class and reduced inequality.

In a potential veiled reference to US President Donald Trump, Xi also promised to keep China at the forefront of globalisation and lead the global challenge against climate change.

“No country can alone address the many challenges facing mankind; no country can afford to retreat into self-isolation,” he added.

However, Xi did not announce any major reforms during his speech, which was short of precise detail and more focused on pointing towards the future actions of China.

“Despite the length of the speech, Xi has been criticised for concentrating more on lifting aspirations rather than outlining clear policies,” said analysts at Rabobank.

“Once again the role of the market was talked up by Xi, though he also indicated that the role of the economy had to be strengthened.”

Danske Bank said the report had few surprises: "With Xi Jinping starting on his second five-year term we should expect continuity on all policies: A continuation of the corruption campaign, strengthening of economic and financial reforms and a continued gradual opening of the Chinese economy."

Danske economists were "cautiously optimistic" that China will continue a gradual reform pace and it will get increased focus over the coming years.

"Nevertheless we expect the economy to slow down gradually over the next year due to financial tightening, which will cause some headwinds for equity markets as well."