Global Times: CPC leadership to hold key meeting from October 20 to 23 on five-year plan, injecting greater confidence into volatile world

BEIJING, Sept. 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The fourth plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee will be held in Beijing from October 20 to 23, according to a decision made at a CPC Central Committee Political Bureau meeting on Monday, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The meeting discussed major issues related to the formulation of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) for national economic and social development, according to Xinhua.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, chaired the meeting.

The Political Bureau heard a report regarding the opinions solicited from in and outside the CPC on the CPC Central Committee's proposals for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan, and decided that the document will be revised based on the discussion at Monday's meeting and submitted to the fourth plenary session for review.

Against the backdrop of a complex and challenging domestic and global environment, the much-awaited meeting in October holds strategic meaning in laying the foundation for Chinese modernization and guiding China's economic transformation and upgrading, while providing valuable certainty and impetus to the world, Wan Zhe, an economist and professor at the Belt and Road School of Beijing Normal University, told the Global Times on Monday.

The CPC's long-term perspective and successive five-year plans serve as a critical anchor at a time when the world faces profound unpredictability, Wan said, noting that Chinese modernization is set to contribute China's wisdom and new development models for globalization, while creating more opportunities for the rest of the world through high-level opening-up.

Plan in focus

Monday's meeting underlined the importance of upholding the Party's overall leadership during the 15th Five-Year Plan period and adhering to a people-centered approach to ensure that more benefits of modernization are shared more fairly among all the people.

It stressed the need to stay committed to high-quality development, foster new quality productive forces in line with local conditions, and comprehensively deepen reform while further expanding high-level opening-up.

China will promote better interplay between an efficient market and a well-functioning government, giving full play to the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources and ensuring the government plays its role better.

The meeting also urged efforts to ensure both development and security and effectively prevent and defuse risks in key areas.

Hu Qimu, a deputy secretary-general of Forum 50 for Digital-Real Economies Integration, highlighted that one of the key aspects of the 15th Five-Year Plan is fostering new quality productive forces in line with local conditions.

"On one hand, through vigorously developing strategic emerging industries and future industries such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductors, China could share dividends brought about by tech revolution. On the other hand, it will help notably enhance production efficiency by transforming traditional industries," Hu said.

In the process, China will consistently open its door wider to the world and continues to share development opportunities with the world, as opening-up is a defining feature of Chinese modernization, according to the expert.

From the holding of international conferences and meetings such as the China Development Forum and the third China International Supply Chain Expo and accelerating the opening-up of its services sector through measures such as fast-tracking the implementation of pilot projects, China is building platforms for international cooperation and sharing opportunities with the world through pragmatic actions.

CPC's strong leadership

Upholding and strengthening the Party's overall leadership is the fundamental guarantee for advancing Chinese modernization, the Political Bureau meeting on Monday noted. It is a must to continuously advance full and rigorous Party self-governance and to enhance the Party's capacity for leading economic and social development. 

The Party's overall leadership is the country's greatest political advantage, Wan said. "The centralized, unified leadership of the CPC Central Committee ensures that the whole country can follow a good blueprint through to the end and that nationwide efforts can be concentrated for key tasks," she said.

Under the overall leadership of the CPC, the five-year plans serve as a comprehensive blueprint for China's economic and social advancement, outlining goals, strategies and priorities for each planning cycle.

Since the launch of the first Five-Year Plan (1953-1957), these plans have not only steered China's transformative development but also evolved to meet the distinct challenges of each era, according to Xinhua.

"Setting a clear, long-term objective has been key to the development of China. In a very volatile international environment today, it's even more important to have a beacon and to have a long-term objective," Denis Depoux, global managing director of consulting firm Roland Berger, told the Global Times in a recent interview.

The State Council will draft the 15th Five-Year Plan based on the suggestions of the CPC Central Committee, and the draft will be reviewed at the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) in 2026, according to the NPC website.

Boosting confidence 

As an important institution that embodies the unique advantages of China's national governance system, five-year plans have been instrumental in pushing forward the country's development in all sectors over the past decades.

Since the beginning of 2025, the international economic and trade order has experienced severe shocks and increasing uncertainties. In the face of mounting pressure, China's economy has maintained a steady growth of 5.3 percent year-on-year in the first half of the year, presenting a high-quality performance.

Meanwhile, from Unitree Robotics' humanoid robots performance becoming a hot topic at the Spring Festival Gala and DeepSeek's artificial intelligence (AI) large model capturing global attention to BYD's new battery and charging system that allows an EV to gain 400 kilometers of range in just five minutes, a wave of phenomenal Chinese innovations has caught the world's attention this year, making global investors re-evaluate China's tech advances.

On September 23, Germany-based global supplier of high-performance engineering materials Envalior launched a joint innovation center in Shanghai, according to the official WeChat account of Envalior Engineering Materials Jiangsu Co Ltd.

China is not only Envalior's strategic market but also the growth engine driving the entire Asian continent, and the company aims to leverage its global resource pool and China's operational agility to harness "China speed" in driving innovation across Asia, Zhang Zhenyu, Asia-Pacific president of Envalior, was quoted as saying.

As an international financial institution deeply rooted in China, UBS remains fully confident in the long-term potential of the Chinese market, Mandy Zhu, UBS Asia's vice-chair of global banking, was quoted as saying in a note sent to the Global Times on September 16.

"Moving forward, we will continue to leverage our leading market position and professional expertise to actively participate in financing plans for top-tier Chinese enterprises, empowering them to achieve greater breakthroughs on the global stage," Zhu said.

SOURCE Global Times