China to Hold Economic Reform Meeting in November

China's leaders will gather in November for a key meeting on economic reforms, state media said Wednesday, the third time they will have met since a generational handover of power last year.

The Third Plenum of the ruling Communist Party's 200-member Central Committee could focus on reforming finance and taxation among other areas, the state-run Global Times newspaper said.

"As a result, analysts expect that economic reforms will speed up," it added.

China's new leadership under President Xi Jinping has repeatedly said the world's second-biggest economy needs to refocus its growth model away from exports and infrastructure investment and towards consumer demand.

But few specific changes have been announced.

The November meeting will receive a report by the 25-member Politburo, the party's second-highest body, focusing on "comprehensive and deepened reform", the Global Times said, indirectly quoting a Politburo statement.

According to a separate report in the China Daily newspaper, the statement said the meeting "will help resolve outstanding conflicts and challenges China faces in the course of its development, and will be conducive to achieving sustainable and healthy economic and social development."

"Reform and opening-up should be continuous and never stop," it added. "Standing still or going backward will lead to a dead end."

The meeting -- officially called the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee -- will be held after the country recorded its weakest annual economic growth for 13 years.

China's growth slowed sharply to 7.8 percent last year from 9.3 percent in 2011 on weakness in the domestic and global economies.

The government is targeting 2013 growth of 7.5 percent.