The annual Central Economic Work Conference was held in Beijing from Wednesday to Thursday as Chinese leaders decided priorities for the economic work in 2026.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, 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 arranged next year's economic work.

It was noted at the meeting that 2025 is a truly extraordinary year, and the main targets for economic and social development will be successfully achieved.

As the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) is set to approach a successful conclusion, the meeting noted that over the past five years, China has effectively navigated various shocks and challenges, and achieved new major accomplishments in the cause of the Party and the country.

It is necessary to fully tap the economic potential, continue to pursue both policy support and reform and innovation, ensure both market vitality and effective regulation, combine investment in physical assets with investment in human capital, and respond to external challenges by strengthening internal capabilities, the meeting said.

Noting that there are still long-standing and new challenges in China's economic development, and the impact of changes in the external environment has deepened while risks and hidden dangers persist in some key areas, the meeting said that these issues can be resolved through efforts, and the underlying conditions and fundamental trends sustaining China's long-term economic growth remain unchanged.

The conference stressed the need to fully and faithfully apply the new development philosophy, move faster to forge a new development paradigm and focus on promoting high-quality development.

China will adhere to the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, 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 impactful macroeconomic policies, formulate more far-sighted, more targeted and better-coordinated policies, continuously expand domestic demand and optimize supply, and develop new quality productive forces according to local conditions.

Efforts will be made to develop a unified national market and continuously prevent and defuse risks in key areas. It is imperative to secure the steady development of employment, businesses, markets and expectations, getting 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 fiscal deficits, overall debt levels and expenditure scale, while standardizing tax incentives and fiscal subsidy policies.

China will continue implementing a moderately loose monetary policy, employ various monetary policy tools such as reserve requirement ratios and interest rates in a flexible and efficient manner to maintain ample liquidity.

China will guide financial institutions to scale up support for domestic demand expansion, sci-tech innovation, micro, small and medium enterprises, and other key areas.

The RMB exchange rate will be kept generally stable at an adaptive, balanced level, the meeting said, adding that China will make macro policy orientations more consistent and effective, and refine expectations management mechanisms to bolster social confidence.

In terms of tasks of next year's economic work, the meeting said domestic demand will remain as a focus in building a robust domestic market.

Special initiatives should be advanced to boost consumption, and the supply of high-quality consumer goods and services should be expanded. Unreasonable restrictions in the consumption sector should be removed, and the potential of service consumption should be unlocked.

China will work to stabilize and revive investment, appropriately increase the scale of investment within the central government budget, and continue to leverage the role of new policy-based financial instruments. China will also advance urban renewal in a high-quality manner.

It will be essential to enhance innovation-driven development to accelerate the cultivation of new growth drivers. China will develop international technological innovation centers in Beijing (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region), Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta), and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Efforts will be made to advance the AI Plus Initiative, improve AI governance and foster innovation in science and technology finance.

The meeting underscored the need to steadily advance institutional opening up, expand self-initiated opening up in the service sector in an orderly manner, and make solid progress in developing the Hainan Free Trade Port.

Efforts should be made to support service export, actively develop digital and green trade, reform and improve the systems for promoting foreign investment, and improve overseas integrated service systems, according to the meeting.

The meeting also highlighted the need to promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, as well as negotiate and sign more regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements.

Prioritizing people's livelihoods, practical measures will also be taken to get things done for the people, the meeting said.

Source: Xinhua