China's annual Central Economic Work Conference, which was held in Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday, has outlined eight priorities for the economic work in 2026.
In a speech at the conference, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, reviewed the country's economic work in 2025, analyzed the current economic situation and arranged the economic work for the coming year.
The conference listed the priorities in the following eight aspects:
The first is to pursue economic development that is led by domestic demand and build a robust domestic market.
The second is to uphold the innovation-driven development strategy and move faster in fostering new growth drivers.
The third is to carry out critical reform tasks and boost the momentum and dynamism for high-quality development.
The fourth is to remain steadfast in pursuing opening up and push for win-win cooperation across various fields.
The fifth is to advance coordinated development and promote integrated development between urban and rural areas and interconnected development between regions.
The sixth is to promote economic growth based on the goals of peaking carbon dioxide emissions and achieving carbon neutrality and advance green transformation across the board.
The seventh is to continue putting people's livelihood first and strive to do more practical things for the people.
The eighth is to hold fast to the bottom line and move to actively and prudently defuse risks in key areas.
Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi, members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, attended the conference.
Premier Li Qiang made a concluding speech, putting forward requirements for doing a good job in the economic work next year.
Central Economic Work Conference outlines priorities for 2026
Central Economic Work Conference outlines priorities for 2026
Central Economic Work Conference outlines priorities for 2026
Chinese scientists announced Monday that they have achieved a breakthrough in yak cloning, with 10 cloned calves all naturally delivered in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region.
These calves, consisting of three black yaks and seven white ones, were born from March 25 to April 5 at a yak breeding and research base in Xizang's Damxung County, all meeting expected standards and steadily gaining weight.
The mass births came after the first cloned yak was born in July 2025, which has grown healthily and weighs about 183 kg now.
The achievement was made using a domestically developed breeding system that combines whole-genome selection with somatic cell cloning, following three years of research by a Chinese scientific team.
"Whole-genome selection can accurately pinpoint excellent genetic loci associated with large body size, fast growth, strong fecundity and disease resistance, high feed conversion efficiency, and tolerance to high-altitude and low-oxygen conditions (cold resistance). On this basis, somatic cell cloning enables 1:1 precise replication of the genotype through asexual rapid propagation (cloning), thereby compressing the breeding cycle to within five years," said Fang Shengguo, a professor at the College of Life Sciences at Zhejiang University and director of the State Conservation Center for Gene Resources of Endangered Wildlife.
Yak farming is one of the key industries targeted for development in Xizang during the country's 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030). Traditional yak breeding has relied on phenotype selection, a process that can take up to 20 years and often leads to declining genetic quality.
Researchers said the new method can shorten the breeding cycle to less than five years by accurately identifying desirable genetic traits such as faster growth, disease resistance, feed efficiency and adaptation to high-altitude, low-oxygen environments, while enabling rapid replication of elite breeding stock.
Experts added that the technology could also support conservation efforts for rare yak genetic resources, including the endangered golden wild yak, whose population in Xizang is estimated at more than 300.
So far, the research team has developed more than 200 cloned embryos of golden wild yaks and hybrid wild-blood yaks, laying the groundwork for future embryo transfer and species recovery programs.
China achieves large-scale births of cloned yaks
