A new public holiday to encourage consumer spending, a crackdown on overtime work in the hope of boosting the birth rate and $100bn in consumption vouchers are some of the proposals being aired at China’s biggest political pageant this week.
The annual eight-day extravaganza, known as the “two sessions”, will kick off on Wednesday with the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a “united front” advisory body. A meeting of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress, follows on Thursday.
CPPCC members float hundreds of proposals during the conference — among them the new public holiday and restrictions on overtime hours to relieve exhausted workers — in hopes of catching the attention of China’s top policymakers.