Joe (Chao) Liu, GM of Fraisa China, and President of SwissCham Shanghai

China sees itself fighting multiple surges of new infections with the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

Several foreign chambers of commerce have conducted flash surveys over the past weeks to gauge the sentiment among their members.

When China in March set the objective to reach “GDP growth of around 5.5 percent” in 2022, this was already seen as quite a stretch.

Recent developments and policies may compound to the risk that the current FYP won’t be able to progress according to plan.

To ensure implementation, ministries and regions devise their detailed FYPs based on the central- and thus more high-level national FYP.

China’s socialist market economy reform wants to “increase efficiency” and “fairness of the market” towards "high-quality development".

Recent regulatory action and authoritative statements suggest that Common Prosperity is being de-prioritized in light of economic headwinds.