CPC plenum to focus on next five-year plan

The 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China will hold its fourth plenary session in October in Beijing, with a focus on deliberating the next five-year plan for the country's social and economic development.

The announcement came on Wednesday after a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, which was presided over by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

According to the main agenda of the upcoming session, the Political Bureau will report its work to the CPC Central Committee and study the proposals for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan, China's strategic road map for national economic and social development between 2026 and 2030, according to a statement issued after Wednesday's meeting.

It was noted at the meeting that the next five years is a crucial period for consolidating the foundation and making comprehensive efforts to basically realize socialist modernization.

As China is facing profound and complex changes in its development environment, with strategic opportunities, risks and challenges coexisting and uncertainties and unforeseen factors growing, it is essential to maintain strategic focus, strengthen confidence in certain victory, actively adapt to the changes, secure strategic initiative in fierce international competitions, and make significant breakthroughs in the strategic task of promoting Chinese modernization, the statement said.

It is important to accelerate the building of a new development paradigm, consider both domestic and international situations in a coordinated way, and balance development and security, in order to promote the economy's effective upgrade in terms of quality and facilitate its appropriate growth in terms of quantity, the statement added.

The meeting's participants highlighted the need to promote the overall well-being of the people, make solid strides toward common prosperity for all, and ensure that decisive progress is made in realizing socialist modernization.

Five-year plans serve as comprehensive blueprints for China's economic and social advancement, outlining the goals, strategies and priorities across various sectors for each period.

Featuring continuity, forward-looking strategic planning and effective implementation, the five-year plans have been instrumental in pushing forward the country's development in all sectors over the past decades since the launch of the first Five-Year Plan (1953-57).

At the Political Bureau meeting on Wednesday, the current economic situation was analyzed and the arrangement for the economic work in the second half of the year was made.

The meeting's participants emphasized the need to give full play to macroeconomic policies, strive to expand domestic demand on all fronts, steadfastly deepen reform and opening-up, promote the deep integration of technological and industrial innovations, and make solid steps to ensure people's livelihoods.

In exercising monetary policy, they emphasized the need to maintain ample liquidity to help reduce overall social financing cost. It is necessary to effectively utilize various structural monetary policy tools to support technological innovation, boost consumption, assist small and micro-sized enterprises, and stabilize foreign trade, they said.

It was noted at the meeting that efforts should be made to stimulate the vitality of private capital and expand effective investment, address production capacity issues in key industries, and energize the vitality of various types of market entities.

While highlighting the need to stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade and foreign investment, the meeting's participants called for assisting foreign trade enterprises facing significant shocks, optimizing export tax rebate policies, and building high-level pilot free trade zones and other platforms for opening-up.

They also underlined the need to actively and prudently resolve local government debt risks, enhance the attractiveness and inclusiveness of the domestic capital market, and consolidate the momentum of the upturn in the country's capital market.

Further efforts should be made to manage flood response and ensure energy supply in summer, they added.

Prior to Wednesday's Political Bureau meeting, the CPC Central Committee held a symposium on July 23 with non-CPC personages to solicit opinions and suggestions on the current economic situation and the economic work for the second half of this year.

While presiding over the symposium, Xi said that in the first half of the year, China's economy made steady progress while maintaining stability, and it also helped maintain overall social stability.

This demonstrates that China's economic foundation is solid and has multiple strengths, strong resilience and great potential, and that the positive factors supporting high-quality development are continuously accumulating, he said.

Noting that the country's economy still faces many risks and challenges, Xi underscored the need to properly understand the situation, enhance the awareness of potential dangers, think about the worst-case scenario, and make good use of development opportunities, potential and advantages to consolidate and expand the positive momentum of economic recovery and improvement.

In terms of economic work in the second half, Xi emphasized the importance of maintaining the consistency and stability of policies and enhancing their flexibility and foreseeability, as well as stabilizing employment, enterprises, the market and expectations.

He underscored the need to vigorously boost consumption, address "rat race" competition, facilitate domestic circulation while reinforcing the dual circulation of domestic and international markets, and strive to meet the economic and social development goals for the year.

It has been a long-held practice for the CPC to solicit suggestions and opinions on major policies and decisions of the CPC and the country from non-Communist parties, leading figures of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and those with no party affiliation.