CHINESE President Xi Jinping has forecast stricter “regulation of high incomes” as part of a raft of measures to deepen public control of the economy.

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, President Xi reported that following the elimination of absolute poverty earlier this year, the Communist Party’s focus would shift to addressing inequality.

The first phase of “reform and opening up” from 1978 had allowed “some areas to get rich first,” but the new priority was “common prosperity for all,” the meeting declared. New laws would “regulate excessively high incomes and encourage high-income groups and enterprises to return more to society.”

It also signalled that there would be no retreat from a crackdown on private education and tutoring announced earlier this month, which has already seen numerous private schools brought into public ownership. The drive is aimed at ensuring “more inclusive and fair conditions for people to improve their education levels,” it said.

The move accompanies a five-year plan that extends state regulation of strategic sectors including technological development and the health system. The initiative seeks to ensure that all sectors of the economy work to “meet people’s ever-growing demands for a good life.”

The policy shifts have been trailed as part of China’s switch from its first “centennial goal” to its second.

The Communist Party adopted the two goals at its 18th Congress in 2012, which was Mr Xi’s first as general secretary.

They were aimed respectively at achieving a “moderately prosperous” society by this year, the centenary of the foundation of the Communist Party in 1921, and a “strong, democratic, civilised, harmonious and modern socialist society” by 2049, the centenary of the establishment of the People’s Republic.