China’s Premier Li Keqiang stated in his annual government work report that the country’s GDP growth target for 2017 would be “around 6.5 percent,” a decrease from last year’s “6.5 percent to 7 percent.” The report, traditionally delivered in the opening days of the National People’s Congress each spring, reviews progress of the previous year,

Chinese leaders pledged to continue structural reforms and regional economic development in light of slowing GDP growth at last week’s Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC), held in Beijing. The conference, considered to be the last major meeting of the year for the Chinese government, reviewed China’s economic performance in 2014 and set the country’s economic agenda for the year to come.

In the face of slowing growth and what policymakers are calling a “new normal” for China’s economy, central planners have stepped up the pace of long-discussed financial liberalizations, from the opening of free trade zones and the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect to—most recently—the proposed establishment of a deposit insurance system.