China's new five-year economic plan is to set clear goals for investors in diverse areas, experts said as the Communist Party of China (CPC) is holding a high level meeting in Beijing to review draft proposals for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for national economic and social development.
The fourth plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee starting on Monday is poised to shape the direction of China's 15th Five-Year Plan that will steer the world's second-largest economy from 2026 to 2030, a defining phase on China's path toward basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035.
"The Five-Year Plan, what it does is to set a very clear goal for investors, for the public to know that this is going to be the areas that's targeted by the government in the near future. Instead of only focusing on the economic development or heavy industry or national defense, I think the goal right now is very diversified, including environmental protection. It involves innovation, social welfare and so on," said Li Lun, an assistant professor of economics at Peking University.
As an overarching blueprint to guide national development, five-year plans outline the country's targets, strategies, priorities and policy orientations in various fields. Starting in 1953, consecutive five-year plans have contributed to China's miracles of rapid economic growth and long-term social stability, becoming an important governance approach.
"Markets are the most efficient mechanism for allocated resources. China has learned that and it has integrated markets into their central planning process," said Willion Lee, chief economist and executive director of the Milken Institute.
"Our Five-Year-Plan is more like a tool to serve and integrate with the market. Basically, it's a macro level instruction or guideline for the market to know, including the investors, the state owned enterprises, the public to have the right expectation of what is going to be the government policy in the future," said Professor Li.
From 2021 to 2024, China maintained an average annual growth rate of 5.5 percent.
The estimated increment of the Chinese economy during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) is set to surpass 35 trillion yuan (4.93 trillion U.S. dollars), which is more than the annual GDP of a major Western economy.
China's per capita GDP hit 13,445 U.S. dollars last year, placing the country among the top tier of upper-middle-income countries.
"China has substantially mastered that art and I think part of it is being pragmatic as one develops from a national and economic standpoint in trying to lessen the levers of control and allow the market to take place without allowing the market to over dominate the process of how one's national trajectory, economic and growth trajectory should be defined," said Sourabh Gupta, a researcher from the Institute for China-American Studies.
China's new 5-year-plan to set clear goals for investors in diverse areas: experts
China's new 5-year-plan to set clear goals for investors in diverse areas: experts
