(Xinhua/Yan Yan)
The annual Central Conference on Economic Work was held in Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday, during which Chinese leaders set priorities for economic work in 2026.
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivered an important speech at the conference.
In his speech, Xi reviewed the country’s economic work in 2025, analyzed the current economic situation and organized next year’s economic work.
It was noted at the meeting that 2025 is a truly extraordinary year and that the main economic and social development goals will be successfully achieved.
As the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) is about to be successfully completed, the meeting noted that over the past five years, China has effectively overcome various shocks and challenges, and made new major breakthroughs in the cause of the Party and the country.
It is necessary to fully exploit economic potential, pursue both policy support and innovative reforms, ensure both market vitality and effective regulation, combine investments in physical assets and investments in human capital, and respond to external challenges by strengthening internal capacities, according to meeting participants.
Participants pointed out that China’s economic development still faces old and new challenges, the impact of changes in the external environment has intensified, and hidden risks and dangers persist in some key areas. These problems can be resolved through effort, and the underlying conditions and fundamental trends that support China’s long-term economic growth remain unchanged.
They stressed the need to fully and faithfully implement the new development philosophy, accelerate the formation of a new development model, and focus on promoting high-quality development.
China will adhere to the general principle of “steadily moving forward”, better coordinate domestic economic work with struggles in the international economic and trade arena, and ensure both development and security.
The country will implement more proactive and effective macroeconomic policies, develop more visionary, more targeted and better coordinated policies, continuously expand domestic demand and optimize supply, while developing new quality productive forces according to local conditions.
Efforts will be made to develop a unified national market and continually prevent and defuse risks in key areas. It is imperative to ensure stable development of employment, businesses, markets and expectations, in order to get the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) off to a good start.
China will continue to implement a more proactive fiscal policy and maintain necessary budget deficits, overall debt levels and spending scale, while normalizing tax incentives and fiscal subsidy policies.
More attention must be paid to resolving local financial difficulties, and Party and state organs will continue to tighten their belts.
China will continue to implement a moderately loose monetary policy, flexibly and effectively using various monetary policy tools, such as reserve requirement ratios and interest rates, to maintain abundant liquidity.
China will encourage financial institutions to strengthen support for key areas, such as expanding domestic demand, scientific and technological innovation, and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
Participants at the meeting said the RMB exchange rate will be kept broadly stable at an adaptive and balanced level, adding that China will strengthen the consistency and effectiveness of macroeconomic policy directions, and perfect expectation management mechanisms to enhance social trust.
