With only a month left of the year, Chinese provincial officials are running out of time to meet their annual growth targets, even as Beijing advances trillions of yuan from next year’s budget to stimulate local economies. Fully 19 of China’s 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities are behind in meeting their annual GDP targets set earlier this year, based on their economic data from the first three quarters of the year, published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The effects of the central government campaign to cut excessive debt, combined with the trade war with the United States, have sapped growth in many provinces this year.

The growth shortfall in so many provinces this late in the year also raises the question of whether Beijing can meet its national 2018 growth target of around 6.5%. Chinese growth was 6.7% through the first three quarters of the year, leaving some leeway to meet the target even if growth slows further in the fourth quarter. Even though Beijing has stressed the quality of growth rather than its pace, failure to meet the growth targets could hurt local officials’ chances of promotion within the Communist Party hierarchy, giving them an extra incentive to act. The rapid weakening of Chinese growth in the second half, and expectations that the slowdown will accelerate next year, added to pressure on Chinese President Xi Jinping to offer concessions to reach a trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump at their dinner in Buenos Aires on December 1.

With the clock ticking towards the year end, some provincial officials are pulling out all the stops in the final few weeks to boost growth and secure their jobs. Xian Hui, Governor of Ningxia, called on his subordinates to prepare for a 40-day race to meet the growth target by improving the efficiency of key projects. Ningxia’s economy grew 7% in the first three quarters, slightly less than its annual goal of 7.5%. Tang Renjian, Governor of Gansu province, ordered local party officials to boost factory production and start new government-sponsored projects as soon as possible. Gansu’s 6.3% growth in the first nine months was above its annual target of about 6%, but its industrial output fell by 1.6% year-on-year in October, stoking worries within the government that fourth-quarter growth would disappoint and pull the full-year results below the target, the South China Morning Post reports.

China’s industrial companies posted slower but steady profit growth in the first 10 months of the year, led by gains in the oil drilling industry and the iron and steel sector. The combined profit of industrial companies with an annual revenue of more than CNY20 million each went up 13.6% year-on-year in the January-October period to CNY5.52 trillion. State-owned companies made a combined profit of CNY1.67 trillion in the first 10 months, up 20.6% from the same period of last year.

Bank of China (BOC) forecast that gross domestic product (GDP) in China will grow by 6.5% in 2019, 0.1 percentage point lower than the estimated full-year GDP growth this year.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged China to adopt further steps to open its market, disagreeing with Beijing’s assessment of the country’s progress in reforming state-owned enterprises (SOEs), reducing trade and investment restrictions, and its efforts to reduce government debt. “We are looking at China and comparing it with other G20 countries in terms of service trade and investment, the Chinese economy is still very restrictive,” Alfred Schipke, IMF’s Chief China Representative, said at a symposium in Beijing. Fostering further openness was one of the policy recommendations made by the Washington-based fund after its annual economic consultations with China in May. In its report, the IMF urged China to de-emphasize its annual growth target, enhance its controls on credit growth and modernize its policy framework.

International calls for further reform have grown louder, with Beijing’s restrictions on market access raised at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and cited as the justification for the unprecedented trade war with the United States. The IMF findings were based on available data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Beijing, however, said the IMF should not have used OECD indicators to measure China’s openness because it is not a member of the Paris-based organization. Instead, it argued, the country’s trade and investment regime is “more open” than the IMF’s assessment and has already complied with all its WTO commitments. Chinese authorities have mounted a vigorous defense of their market openness as this year marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the country’s economic reforms.

The government announced earlier this year that it would allow foreign control of financial and auto joint ventures, increase access to its capital market and narrow the list of sectors in which foreign investment is restricted. JP Morgan has expressed interest in starting a financial joint venture in China, while the government will allow Tesla to have full ownership of its planned auto factory in Shanghai. Both the U.S. and European Union have refused to recognize China as a market economy, a move that would limit their ability to limit Chinese imports, the South China Morning Post reports.

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for achieving high-quality economic growth through developing the Yangtze River economic belt. He made the remarks at a symposium in Wuhan, where he held a summit meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He stressed the importance of enhancing reform and innovation, strategic coordination and planning in developing the economic belt.

During his visit to Wuhan, Xi also urged stronger independent innovation capacity for China, saying the country must master the core technology of high-end equipment. China must rely on its own efforts, Xi said at the Three Gorges Dam. China would not have its leading ability if it had relied on others to build the dam, said Xi. The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation can only be achieved through untiring struggle, he added. During an inspection of a new material industrial park on the Yangtze River, Xi stressed coordination in ecological protection and economic development. The Yangtze river must be protected, and any exploitation that is destructive to the environment must be forbidden, the President said. Environmental recovery must be the project’s top priority, Xi Jinping said. While inspecting a port at Yueyang, Hunan, Xi said those illegally discharging pollutants must face strong punishment.

The President spent two days visiting cities along the Yangzte river in Hubei and Hunan provinces. The economic belt covers 11 provinces and municipalities, including Hubei, Hunan, Shanghai and Chongqing, and is home to about 40% of the country’s population and GDP.

President Xi Jinping did not attend the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos this year – as he did last year. Instead he sent his top economic advisor Liu He to the meeting. Liu He is a strong candidate to become a Vice Premier responsible for economy and finance when the National People’s Congress (NPC) approves the composition of a new Chinese government in mid-March. Liu is the Director of the Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs and Vice Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). At the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress in October last year he became a Member of the Politburo.

In his speech, Liu He told the Davos meeting that China would open its domestic markets wider and that this year’s reform measures could “exceed the international community’s expectations”. The financial sector, manufacturing and services industries, intellectual property rights, and imports are the four key sectors targeted for reforms this year.

The principal contradiction in China’s economic development is the structural mismatch resulting from the supply side failing to evolve in step with demand. This aspect of China’s economic policy urgently needs to be fixed, he said. The priority, he emphasized, is to cut excess capacity where necessary, reduce inventory in the housing sector, bring down the overall leverage ratio, lower costs across the board, and strengthen the weak links in the economy, ranging from public services to infrastructure and institutions.

“With these measures, we hope to make the supply side more adaptable and more innovative. Some initial progress has been made,” Liu said. “Our focus needs to change from ‘Is there enough?’ to ‘Is it good enough?’” he added. He said China has strengthened protection of intellectual property rights, promoted fair competition, deepened the opening of financial markets and increased imports. “With efforts to implement the Belt and Road Initiative, we are moving economic globalization forward with concrete actions,” Liu said. “China’s reform and opening up started in 1978 and has created China’s economic growth miracle,” Liu said. “The best way of commemorating the 40th anniversary is to launch more forceful measures.”

He was the only policymaker who is not a state leader to speak in one of 10 sessions hosted by WEF Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab. Other speakers who took the chair beside Schwab include U.S. President Donald Trump, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, UK Prime Minister Theresa May, French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Liu attended the Davos meeting for the first time in 1993 as a junior government official and last year he was in the audience when President Xi Jinping warned that a trade war would benefit no one.

Watch Liu He’s speech on YouTube (with English simultaneous translation).

China’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 6.9% in 2017, reversing a downward growth trend for the first time since 2010 in an indication of strong resilience. In nominal terms, GDP rose by 11.2% to CNY82.7 trillion from CNY74.4 trillion in 2016, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. The strong performance is expected to give the government more room to tackle debt and financial risks in 2018, which President Xi Jinping said was a “critical battle” to fight.

Iris Pang, Chief Greater China Economist at ING, said the possibility of a “crisis” had been largely removed, but Beijing still needed to be cautious as it continued with its process of financial deleveraging. “The deleveraging is set to eliminate financial risks, but the authorities should not do it in haste as that could generate new risks,” she said. The GDP expansion meant China’s economy grew to about two-thirds the size of the United States’ last year, and at the current rate could overtake it within the next decade. The accelerated growth in 2017 is set to give President Xi Jinping fresh confidence in Beijing’s growth model. “In the current world, ‘democratic deficit’, ‘governance deficit’ and ‘development trap’ rise one after another, while problems like the rich-poor gap, terrorism and climate change keep emerging,” an article in the People’s Daily said. “The international political and economic system dominated by capitalism is flawed and needs deep reform. The new international order is budding. China’s practices offer a new choice to solve common problems facing all humankind.”

China’s per capita income rose 9% in 2017 to CNY25,974, the NBS added. Raymond Yeung, Chief Greater China Economist of ANZ Bank, said the current growth momentum was likely to continue in 2018 – with 6.5% growth forecast for the year – but the government would remain focused on reducing debt. “Risks to the economy, like debt, will be a top priority this year,” he said. Under “Xiconomics”, Beijing has downplayed GDP growth targets in favor of “quality” growth, sustainable development and greater transparency in auditing, as several provinces and cities have been found falsifying economic data, the South China Morning Post reports.

The services sector led growth with an increase of 8%, outpacing the industrial sector’s 6.1% and the agricultural sector’s 3.9%. Services continued to make up 51.6% of the country’s GDP.

Fixed-asset investment rose 7.2% year-on-year, down 0.9 percentage points from 2016. Private investment reached CNY38.15 trillion, up 6% year-on-year, 2.8 percentage points faster than the previous year, accounting for 60.4% of total investment. Online sales of physical goods rose 32.2% to CNY7.18 trillion, amounting to 15% of total retail sales, 2.6 percentage points higher than 2016. Earlier data showed China’s consumer inflation was 1.6% last year, cooler than the 2% for 2016, while the factory-gate prices rose for the first time in six years. Foreign trade recorded its first expansion in three years under strong domestic and external demand.

The Chinese government should lower the country’s expectations for gross domestic product growth and push forward reforms at state-owned enterprises (SOEs), both key for addressing China’s mounting credit and debt problem, according to Paul Gruenwald, Chief Economist at S&P Global Ratings. “Most of the debt is from the corporate sector, especially the SOEs,” he said. Gruenwald said the market should also play an essential role besides the government in containing excessive borrowing