BEIJING: President Xi Jinping said China must pursue "common prosperity,” in which wealth is shared by all people, as a key feature of a modern economy, while also curbing financial risks.

       Xi chaired a meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs on Tuesday, in which officials outlined plans to advance those goals. Among those were pledges to adjust excessive income and encourage the wealthy to "give back to society more,” according to a summary of the meeting published by state media Xinhua.

       Common prosperity refers to affluence shared by everyone, rather than only a few people being prosperous, according to the meeting. That objective is central to promoting people’s well-being and strengthening the party’s governance, as China strives to achieve its second centenary goal of fully building a modern socialist country, it said.

       The meeting vowed to "strengthen the regulation and adjustment of high income, protect legal income, reasonably adjust excessive income, and encourage high-income groups and enterprises to give back to society more,” according to the Xinhua report. It also urged the country to "properly deal with the relationship between efficiency and fairness”.

       Some of the steps on how to achieve those goals include:

       making basic institutional arrangements on income distribution, expanding the size of the middle-income group,increasing the earnings for the low-income groups, adjusting excessive incomes, prohibiting illicit income to promote social fairness and justice.

       Officials also agreed that efforts should be made to strike a balance between ensuring stable economic growth and preventing financial risks, according to Xinhua. - Bloomberg