China Shows Few Signs of Tilting Economy Toward Consumers in New Plan

The Communist Party rebuffed calls from economists to shift away from investment-led growth and toward consumer spending.

China engaged in a monthslong drumbeat of anticipation that a Communist Party leaders’ meeting would show the way to a new era of growth for the slowing economy.

The outcome was a plan released on Sunday offering more than 300 steps on everything from taxes to religion. It echoed many familiar themes, like an emphasis on government investments in high-tech manufacturing and scientific innovation. There was little mention of anything that would directly address China’s plunging real estate prices or the millions of unfinished apartments left behind by failed developers.

Many economists had called for a comprehensive effort to rebalance the Chinese economy away from investment and toward consumer spending. But the document — roughly 15,000 words in the English translation — made a brief and cautious call to “refine long-term mechanisms for expanding consumption.”

The Communist Party’s Central Committee doubled down on industrial policy. The party promised to “promote the development of strategic industries” in eight sectors, from renewable energy to aerospace. Those were essentially the same industries as in the country’s decade-old Made in China 2025 plan to replace imports of high-tech goods with locally produced products, as part of a national push for self-reliance.

A similar plan in 2013 had many provisions that have never been put into effect, such as a plan to roll out a nationwide property tax to raise money for local governments.

Many of these local governments have fallen far into debt since then. Sunday’s plan proposed a different solution: The central government should become responsible for more of the country’s spending. It also called for expanding local tax revenues, but had only a bare mention of a real estate tax.