| Welcome to Bw Daily, the Bloomberg Businessweek newsletter, where we'll bring you interesting voices, great reporting and the magazine's usual charm every weekday. Let us know what you think by emailing our editor here! If this has been forwarded to you, click here to sign up. And here it is … Imagine an event that compresses a full year of Congress, including a State of the Union address, into less than two weeks. That's what China's National People's Congress does. The parliament began its annual meetings on Sunday and in the coming days will greenlight action on issues such as inequality and the environment. The NPC even includes a once-a-year press conference by the premier (this year it's the incoming Li Qiang) where reporters have a rare opportunity to pose questions to China's leadership. (President Xi Jinping doesn't do press conferences.) The NPC has all the trappings of a legislative gathering and there is some deliberation, but don't expect much spirited debate—delegates are mostly signing off on priorities handed down from the top of the Communist Party.  The opening session of the National Peoples Congress outdoor screen on Sunday in Beijing. Photographer: Wang Zhao/AFP The agenda maps out China's ambitions not just for the year ahead but also for the years after. In the biggest announcements on Sunday, China said it would target gross domestic product expansion of about 5% for 2023, create 12 million urban jobs and increase defense spending by 7.2%, the fastest pace since 2019. The growth target was lower than analysts had expected and will likely be met given the end of the country's Covid Zero policies has lifted both business and consumer spirits. Home sales in February rose for the first time in 20 months, hinting at a turning point after a historic slump. Surveys showed manufacturing activity posting its biggest jump in more than a decade. In an example of how the China effect plays out globally, the better data for February triggered a share price rally for Gucci owner Kering and Christian Dior owner LVMH on bets that shoppers are opening their wallets again. Global consumer giants are hoping for a big China rebound. "China will be the only major economy this year to experience faster growth," says Mansoor Mohi-uddin, chief economist at Bank of Singapore Ltd. Aside from the numbers, China watchers will be closely watching who's named to key roles and how Xi plans to further consolidate power. The legislature will approve a new premier, vice premiers and ministers. (Xi has already secured a third term.) Li Qiang, a close ally and former subordinate of Xi, is expected to succeed Li Keqiang as the premier. He Lifeng, also a longtime associate of Xi who runs the economic planning agency, will likely replace Liu He as the vice premier overseeing economic work. The central bank and securities regulator will get new personnel and, in what may turn out to be consequential, officials have signaled a further centralization of decision-making in China's $60 trillion financial system under Xi. Although the details will take time to become clear, early signals are that the Communist Party leadership will have an even greater say in running the world's second biggest economy. Foreign investors are likely to wince at the shift, but the end result may mean better execution of China's core ambitions, according to Bloomberg Economics' Chang Shu. "The likely departure of well-known, pro-market leaders may cause concerns over the risk of China turning less pro-market and more inward looking," she said. "Still, the new team could bring in considerable experience on how things work in China at a local level, and political muscle to get things done—not least because they have the trust of the top leadership." —Enda Curran, senior economics reporter | 
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