Five-year plan to chart course for economy

Innovation, inclusive growth and domestic resilience seen as development anchors. Xu Wei reports

- 

As the global economy experiences increasing volatility, China is anchoring its strategy in one of its most enduring tools of governance: its five-year plans, to chart a steady course.

In the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) now being developed, policymakers are placing stronger emphasis on innovation, inclusive growth and domestic resilience as foundations for China's high-quality growth.

The blueprint will serve as a source of certainty and will present a China solution that shares opportunities with the rest of the world, analysts said.

President Xi Jinping, in setting the tone for making the blueprint, reiterated China's twin imperatives: to confidently manage its own affairs and to press ahead with high-level opening-up, a dual strategy aimed at reinforcing resilience at home while deepening engagement with the world.

In a meeting with provincial leaders in April, Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, highlighted the need to set out goals and policy initiatives sector by sector, all aligned with the overarching objective of basically achieving socialist modernisation by 2035.

Dong Yu, executive vice-president of the China Institute for Development Planning at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said China's five-year plans, enacted upon approval by the country's top legislature, help stabilise market expectations and ensure the consistency of major policies, unlike the frequent changes seen in some major economies.