CGTN: How does China set tone for economic work in 2026?
BEIJING, Dec. 12, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- With Chinese leaders gathered in Beijing for the annual Central Economic Work Conference, CGTN published an article outlining how China's 2026 economic agenda underscores the country's commitment to strengthening domestic demand, advancing innovation, and deepening high-level opening up, signaling renewed confidence and providing greater certainty for global development.
Chinese leaders convened in Beijing on December 10 and 11 for the annual Central Economic Work Conference, a meeting widely viewed as the compass for China's economic trajectory.
Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the meeting and delivered a keynote address reviewing economic performance in 2025, assessing emerging challenges, and outlining priorities for 2026, the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030).
Leaders emphasized that next year's policies will focus on "pursuing progress while ensuring stability" and "improving both quality and effectiveness," outlining eight core tasks, including boosting domestic demand, promoting innovation, deepening reform and opening-up, advancing low-carbon development, and enhancing people's livelihoods. The meeting sends a clear message: China is entering 2026 with confidence, policy clarity, and renewed momentum, providing stability and opportunity for the global economy.
Domestic demand as the engine of growth
The meeting emphasized that increasing domestic consumption is the main economic priority for next year. Policymakers plan to take specific actions to boost spending, optimize the "two new" policies-covering large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-ins-and eliminate unreasonable restrictions in the consumer sector to unlock the potential of service consumption.
Data shows that China's consumer market remained resilient in 2025. In the first three quarters, final consumption expenditure contributed 53.5 percent to GDP growth, an increase of nine percentage points from the previous year. From January to October, retail sales of consumer goods exceeded 40 trillion yuan ($5.7 trillion), a 4.3 percent year-over-year increase, outpacing last year's growth.
In an exclusive interview with CGTN, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, explaining the IMF's recent upgrade of China's 2025 GDP forecast, emphasized the importance of domestic consumption in supporting economic resilience. She praised China's commitment to maintaining an open and responsible economy, pointing out that this supports the country's focus on consumption in its new Five-Year Plan.
Innovation driving new growth
Innovation will remain a key driver of development. China aims to establish international innovation hubs in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Policies will focus on boosting enterprise-led innovation, strengthening intellectual property protection in emerging industries, expanding service-sector capabilities, and advancing AI development through improved governance and tech-finance integration.
According to the 2025 Global Innovation Index, China ranked in the top 10 for the first time and remains the highest-ranked among the 36 upper-middle-income economies. Its innovation clusters lead the world, with the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster ranking first worldwide. Bloomberg Economics projects that China's high-tech sector, including AI, will grow from 14.3 percent of GDP in 2023 to nearly 19 percent by 2026.
An open China provides certainty to the world
Opening up remains one of China's strategic advantages, and the conference reaffirmed that China will expand institutional and autonomous opening in the services sector, optimize the layout of free trade zones, and advance the Hainan Free Trade Port.
China's foreign trade this year demonstrated resilience despite global challenges. From January to November, imports and exports totaled 41.21 trillion yuan, up 3.6 percent from the previous year.
A recent CGTN global survey shows that 86.7 percent of respondents believe China's continued efforts to boost domestic consumption will create significant opportunities for international companies. In the meantime, 89.1 percent say China's ongoing expansion of opening-up will generate broader development opportunities worldwide.
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