Chinese leaders open planning meeting reformers hope will lead to economic change

BEIJING – Chinese leaders have begun a closely watched policymaking meeting with a promise to deepen economic reform amid hopes for change in areas from the status of state companies to control of farmland.

The Communist Party has yet to give details of the four-day meeting's agenda. But the official Xinhua News Agency, which reported the closed-door meeting opened Saturday, said that the gathering would consider "major issues concerning comprehensively deepening reforms."

Chinese leaders are under pressure to overhaul a model based on trade and investment that has run out of steam after delivering three decades of rapid growth. Advisers including the World Bank say they need to give entrepreneurs who create China's new jobs and wealth a bigger role in the state-dominated economy.