Chinese President Xi Jinping outlined the major strategic priorities in planning for national economic and social development in the 2026-2030 period during an inspection tour of China's financial hub of Shanghai on Wednesday, emphasizing the importance of fostering new quality productive forces and advancing scientific and technological innovation.
Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the inspection tour of Shanghai from Tuesday to Wednesday when China revs up efforts to fulfill the targets set in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) in the final year of its implementation and to formulate the next five-year plan.
China's five-year plan is a key guiding document for medium-to-long-term economic and social progress, which sets the country's overall goals, major tasks and policy orientation across various sectors over a five-year period.
Since its first launch in the 1950s, the five-year plan has been serving as a blueprint for China's overall development. The formulation process operates through a well-structured framework that combines the centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee with extensive democratic participation.
Presiding over a symposium on China's economic and social development in the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) on Wednesday, Xi said higher strategic priority must be given to fostering new quality productive forces in line with local conditions in the next five years.
After hearing opinions and suggestions from leading officials of several provincial-level regions attending the symposium, Xi stressed that scientifically formulating and continuously implementing the five-year plans is an important experience of the CPC in governing the country, and also an important political advantage of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
He called for adapting to changing situations, grasping strategic priorities, and making sound plans for the country's economic and social development in the 2026-2030 period.
It is essential to have a forward-looking grasp of the impact brought by the development and changes in the international landscape, and guide the adjustment and optimization of the economic layout in accordance with the trend, Xi said.
Efforts should be made to unswervingly manage China's own affairs well, expand high-standard opening up, move faster to create a new pattern of development and comprehensively promote high-quality development, he said. A meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, chaired by Xi last Friday, noted that it is imperative to coordinate domestic economic work and endeavors in the international economic and trade field, unswervingly manage the country's own affairs well, stay committed to expanding high-standard opening up, and deal with the uncertainty of drastic changes in the external environment with the certainty of the country's high-quality development. On Wednesday's symposium, Xi highlighted the roles of technological innovation and the real economy, urging efforts to transform and upgrade traditional industries, develop emerging industries, and make forward-thinking arrangements for industries of the future, so as to accelerate modernization of the industrial system.
Underscoring benefiting the people, Xi also called for ensuring and enhancing the people's livelihoods through development and steadily advancing common prosperity.
Ahead of the symposium, Xi visited the Shanghai Foundation Model Innovation Center on Tuesday, a large-model incubator home to over 100 enterprises, urging the city to take the lead in AI development and governance while highlighting China's vast potential for the industry.
"High technologies like AI is a nascent undertaking that belongs to young people. This undertaking is part of our endeavors to advance Chinese modernization, build China into a strong country, and realize the great cause of national rejuvenation, and the hope lies in all of you," Xi told young innovators.
The Yangtze River Delta region, anchored by Shanghai, is at the forefront of China's AI innovation. DeepSeek, hailing from Hangzhou in the southern part of the delta region, is less than 200 kilometers away from Shanghai.
Xi's inspection tour came four days after China's leadership convened a dedicated AI study session, during which Xi called for gaining a head start in this strategic sector.
During the group study session, Xi emphasized that in the face of rapidly evolving new-generation AI technologies, China shall give full play to the advantages of the new system for mobilizing resources nationwide, uphold self-reliance and self-strengthening, prioritize application-oriented development, and promote healthy and orderly advancement of the country's AI sector toward a beneficial, safe and equitable direction.
Also on Tuesday, Xi visited the New Development Bank in Shanghai and met with Dilma Rousseff, president of the institution.
"Over the years, I have followed with keen interest the development of the New Development Bank, witnessing its remarkable evolution into an emerging force within the international financial system and a model of the Global South cooperation," Xi said at the meeting with Rousseff.
Xi said at the meeting that no matter how the international situation changes, the general course of human development and progress will not alter.
China has achieved its development through self-reliance and hard work. It will firmly safeguard its own legitimate rights and interests, as well as the common interests of the international community, Xi noted.
For her part, Rousseff said unilateralism and protectionism have been eroding the authority of international law and undermining the stability of industrial and supply chains. She said the New Development Bank will remain true to its original aspiration, take active measures, and contribute to promoting the development of developing and emerging-market countries.
China is injecting more certainty, stability and positive energy into a turbulent world.
Xi outlines major strategic priorities for 2026-2030 economic, social development plan
