China Touts Growth to Start 5-Year Plan
As China begins its 15th Five-Year Plan, a state media report highlights what it calls "powerful domestic growth drivers" intended to ensure a strong start for the 2026-2030 period. The report expresses confidence that the country's economic strategy will deliver a stable and robust beginning to the new plan.
The preceding 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) saw China's GDP surpass 140 trillion yuan (about $20.13 trillion) in 2025, with an average annual growth rate of 5.5% over the first four years. This period also saw significant strides in technological innovation, with high-tech manufacturing value-added growing at an average annual rate of 9.2%. A key focus of the new plan is "technological self-reliance," a theme that gained prominence during the previous plan. The 15th Five-Year Plan will intensify this push, targeting breakthroughs in core technologies like semiconductors, advanced materials, biomanufacturing, and artificial intelligence. This is part of a broader strategy to create "new quality productive forces" and reduce dependency on foreign technology. The plan also emphasizes a "dual circulation" strategy, which aims to bolster domestic consumption as the main driver of economic growth while maintaining foreign trade and investment. This is a response to subdued domestic demand and a protracted property market slump that have posed significant challenges to the economy. A central pillar of the 2026-2030 plan is green development, building on the previous period's achievements which saw installed renewable energy capacity more than double. The new plan will shift from controlling energy consumption to controlling carbon emissions, expand its national carbon market, and promote the use of green technologies. To stimulate domestic demand, the plan aims to increase personal incomes and expand the middle class. This includes opportunities in healthcare, education, and digital services. The modernization of the industrial system remains a top priority, with a focus on upgrading traditional industries and fostering emerging sectors. This involves integrating digital technologies and automation to move China's manufacturing up the value chain. The long-term goal underpinning this and future plans is to achieve "basic socialist modernization" by 2035. The 15th Five-Year Plan is seen as a critical phase in laying the foundation for this objective.
