China: Five-Year Plan Guided by Economic Self-Reliance
2026-03-17
■ China sets goals for its new Five-Year Plan, emphasizing higher quality growth, such as increasing per capita GDP.
■ Placing "high-quality economic development" as the top priority and a crucial strategic move towards economic self-reliance.
The National People's Congress (NPC) of China reviewed and approved
the 15th Five-Year Plan ("15th Five-Year Plan") for 2026-2030, which
concluded on the 12th. Building upon the achievement of "building a
moderately prosperous society in all respects" by 2021, the 100th
anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the 15th
Five-Year Plan has established "building a modern socialist country in
all respects" by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the
People's Republic of China, as a new long-term goal. The 15th Five-Year
Plan is positioned as a period for laying a solid foundation for
achieving the interim goal of "basically realizing socialist
modernization" by 2035.
As a new round of Five-Year Plans, the 15th Five-Year Plan takes
"high-quality economic development" as its core task, emphasizing
improving the quality of growth and promoting economic restructuring to
achieve this goal. The plan sets 20 target indicators. Unlike previous
five-year plans, this plan does not explicitly set a specific economic
growth rate target, continuing the principle of "maintaining within a
reasonable range" proposed in the previous plan, and dynamically setting
targets based on the actual situation each year. Doubling per capita
GDP from 2020 levels by 2035, reaching the level of moderately developed
countries, has been set as a medium-term goal. Therefore, over
the next five years, as a foundation-building phase, macroeconomic
policies are expected to focus more on increasing per capita GDP than on simply pursuing
GDP growth. Regarding key quantitative indicators beyond "economic
development," "innovation-driven development" has been further
strengthened, with the added value of the core digital economy
industries increasing to 12.5% of GDP (compared to 10.0% in the
previous plan), and the target of an average annual growth of 7% in
R&D investment remaining unchanged.
"Major strategic tasks" include four aspects: "high-quality economic
development" (emphasizing technological self-reliance, technological
innovation, and breakthroughs in key core technologies), "strengthening
the domestic economic cycle" (expanding domestic demand and
building a unified national market), "promoting common prosperity"
(improving employment, income, and social security), and "coordinating
development and security" (covering national security issues such as
energy and food security). To achieve these goals, the plan outlines 109
key projects across six major areas, explicitly stating its intention
to promote a shift in the economic structure towards a domestic
demand-driven model by cultivating high-tech, digital, and green
industries and creating new markets, while also strengthening national
security. Compared to the 2026 "Government Work Tasks," which
prioritized "building a strong domestic market," this plan places
"high-quality economic development" above "strengthening the domestic
economic cycle," demonstrating the Chinese government's greater emphasis
on structural economic reforms in the medium to long term. This is also
seen as a crucial strategic move in the irreversible process of
decoupling from the United States, restructuring supply chains, and
building an economic system centered on the domestic economy.