The Chinese growth target for this year has been cut to around 6.5%, down from 6.5 to 7% last year, Premier Li Keqiang has announced.
He was addressing the country's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), which has gathered in Beijing for its annual session.
The Chinese economy expanded at its slowest pace in 26 years in 2016. Mr Li said he would tackle state "zombie enterprises" producing more coal and steel than the market needed. Similar pledges in the past have proved hard to fulfil. More than 3,000 legislators are meeting in the Great Hall of the People.
The NPC and its advisory body hold ceremonial meetings every year known as "lianghui" or "two sessions".
Inside though, I sometimes think I detect a certain restlessness amongst the delegates, as if they themselves are acutely aware of how minor a role they play. Those down the front certainly follow Li Keqiang's speech page by page.
But further back, it has to be said, attention is not quite a rapt as you might expect. It was telling that the biggest round of applause came not for Mr Li's pledges to combat industrial over-capacity, fight the scourge of pollution or oppose Taiwanese independence. It came instead for a line of policy detail that just might save every one of the 3,000 or so people in the hall a bit of money off their phone bills.
The scrapping of China's national mobile telephone roaming charges was as close as the speech got to raising a cheer.
BBC
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