BEIJING: Local governments across China have ramped up efforts with focusing agenda of the upcoming 2026, the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), with provinces and major cities highlighting booming sectors, ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) to humanoid robots and the low-altitude economy as focuses of development ahead.
As higher strategic priority will be given to fostering new quality productive forces in line with local conditions in the next five years, a Chinese analyst said that the new booming technology-oriented sectors will bring about industrial upgrading, talent demand, while injecting new impetus into the sustainable development of the real economy ahead.
Recently, several provinces have released their local 15th Five-Year Plan recommendations,outlining a more detailed picture of cultivating new quality productive forces and promoting industrial innovation, according to CCTV News.
Beijing has proposed to foster a globally leading AI industry ecosystem and strengthen research on key core technologies such as high-end chips and foundational software, the CCTV News report said.
New quality productive forces will be the key focus of the city’s development. According to an article published on the official website of Beijing Municipality Government, the capital’s 15th Five-Year Plan development path emphasizes “vigorously developing new quality productive forces” and “accelerating the construction of a high-level talent hub,” placing technological innovation in a more central position.
East China’s Zhejiang Province, the nation’s innovation and production hub, is proposing to focus on building emerging pillar industries and accelerating the development of emerging industrial clusters in areas such as AI, aerospace, low-altitude economy and biomedicine.
Meanwhile, South China’s Guangdong Province proposed to develop the “AI + robotics” sector into a high-tech, high-growth and large-scale industrial clusters, aiming to forge more industrial clusters at the trillion-yuan and hundred-billion-yuan scale, CCTV reported.
In East China’s Fujian Province, the local government vows to closely focus on consolidating the foundation of the real economy, continuously promote the deep integration of technological and industrial innovation, improve the coordinated policies and mechanisms for education, science and talent development, and strengthen independent innovation capabilities, the Fujian Daily reported.
The five-year plans have always played a positive role in promoting local economic development, as the continuity of policies provides local governments with greater room for long-term planning, Li Changan, a professor at the Academy of China Open Economy Studies under the University of International Business and Economics, told the Global Times on Sunday.
Among the plans, technology and innovation has played an increasingly important role as the nation pursues high-quality development, said the expert.
Since the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), China’s economic aggregate has consecutively crossed three major thresholds, reaching around 140 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 5.5 percent supporting an enormous incremental increase of over 35 trillion yuan, the Xinhua News Agency reported. By 2024, the total R&D expenditure of the whole society had grown by nearly 50 percent compared with the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), said the report.
Based on what has already been achieved, Li said that the plans for the next five years are primarily focused on emerging industries, as the development of emerging industrial clusters not only helps to cultivate new economic growth points, but also generates positive spillover effects in attracting high-end talent, upgrading employment structures, and promoting the development of related supporting industries. –The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item
