Chinese leaders convened in Beijing on December 10-11 for the annual Central Economic Work Conference, where Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech reviewing 2025 economic performance, assessing challenges, and outlining 2026 priorities. The meeting emphasized boosting domestic demand, fostering innovation, deepening reforms, and expanding opening-up to promote high-quality development.
The Central Economic Work Conference took place in Beijing over two days, setting the tone for 2026 economic work as the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030). Xi Jinping's speech highlighted that 2025 was an extraordinary year, with major economic and social development targets to be achieved and the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) concluding successfully. Despite persistent long-standing and new challenges, along with deepening external environmental impacts, the fundamental conditions for China's long-term economic growth remain unchanged.
The conference stressed adhering to the principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, coordinating domestic and international economic efforts, and balancing development with security. It called for more proactive macroeconomic policies, including a more active fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy. Fiscal measures will maintain necessary deficits, overall debt levels, and expenditure scales, while addressing local fiscal difficulties. Monetary policy will flexibly use tools like reserve requirement ratios and interest rates to ensure ample liquidity, supporting domestic demand expansion, technological innovation, and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Key tasks include expanding domestic demand, developing new quality productive forces, deepening reforms, and expanding opening-up. Initiatives will boost consumption through enhancement campaigns, stabilize investment, and accelerate new growth drivers, such as establishing international science and technology innovation centers in Beijing, Shanghai, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and advancing the 'AI Plus' initiative. Reforms will target state-owned enterprises and the private sector, while progressing the Hainan Free Trade Port and high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. The meeting also emphasized urban-rural integrated development, comprehensive green transformation, livelihood improvements, and prudent risk resolution in real estate and local government debt.
Li Qiang delivered the concluding remarks, with attendees including Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang, and Li Xi. The conference urged unity under the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core to achieve next year's goals and launch the 15th Five-Year Plan successfully.
