By Jonathan Cheng 

BEIJING -- Chinese leaders said they would target gross domestic product growth of 6% or more this year, a relatively modest goal that nonetheless signals continued optimism after a year in which the coronavirus eviscerated the global economy.

The growth target of 6% or more, announced Friday in Beijing by Premier Li Keqiang, is comfortably lower than most economists' consensus expectations for the world's second-largest economy to grow by 8% or more this year.

(More to come)

--Grace Zhu and Bingyan Wang contributed to this article.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 04, 2021 20:42 ET (01:42 GMT)