China’s once in a decade leadership transition took place at the recently concluded communist party meeting. As expected the incoming Communist Party General Secretary and President-elect Xi Jinping take control in March 2013. Much has written about Xi Jinping but not much about the China’s premier-elect Li Keqiang, who will be in charge of the country’s economy. He is an award winning economist who specializes in urbanization of China. He is taking charge of the world’s second largest economy at a time growth has slowed to seven percent, a 23 year low. Besides the slow growth China has a widening income gap and immediate need to promote private sector companies.
Li has identified weak domestic consumption, over reliance on exports, unsustainable rate of government investment and underdeveloped service sector as main challenges of the Chinese economy.
Premier-elect has a law degree and a Ph. D. in economics from Peking University. Li, 57, as the Governor of Henan ran the province that had a population of 93 million from 1998 to 2004. Later he ran the Liaoning region. All throughout the party convention, Chinese leaders stressed the need to stop corruption and Li will be the key to Chinese success in the coming decade.