BEIJING – Chinese president Xi Jinping yesterday said challenges facing the country’s embattled private sector were “surmountable”, as he met with top business leaders, including Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma. 

Since coming to power more than a decade ago, Xi has strengthened the role of state enterprises in the world’s second-largest economy, and waged crackdowns on areas of the private sector undergoing “disorderly” expansion.
But reports last week said he was preparing to meet leading business luminaries, as Beijing battles a slowing economy beset by a real-estate crisis, persistently low consumption, and high youth unemployment.

State broadcaster CCTV reported yesterday that the meeting had taken place at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, with video showing Ma and rows of other entrepreneurs standing and applauding as Xi entered a lavish room.

In a later readout, state news agency Xinhua reported Xi “stressed that the difficulties and challenges currently faced by the development of the private economy have generally appeared during the process of reform and development, and industrial transformation”.

The Chinese leader reportedly urged attendees to “unify thought and action” around the ruling Communist Party’s economic policies, “see the prospects, see the light, and see the future”.

Hailing the “significant advantages” of China’s socialist market system, Xi added that he expected entrepreneurs to “have the ambition to serve the country… promote common prosperity, and make greater contributions to promoting Chinese-style modernisation”.
The former English teacher founded tech behemoth Alibaba in 1999, and built it into one of China’s most recognisable and dominant private companies.
He once cultivated an outspoken public persona, but reined in his pronouncements towards the end of the last decade as Xi oversaw a sweeping crackdown on the country’s once-freewheeling technology and internet platforms. 

– Nampa/AFP