China’s Robust Growth Target Points to More Stimulus

HONG KONG—By calling for growth of 5.5% this year, China’s leaders have set a relatively high bar for an economy facing a litany of challenges at home and abroad—and paved the way, economists say, for more aggressive stimulus measures in the coming months.

Officials in Beijing said Saturday that they would seek to expand gross domestic product by 5.5% this year. While that target is lower than any annual target since China began setting such benchmarks in 1994, economists say it is actually a much heavier lift than its 2021 target of 6% or more, given last year’s Covid-related statistical distortions and the mounting headwinds facing the world’s second-largest economy.