China’s Communist top party leaders are expected to meet this week to draw the next Five-year plan and decide on the world’s second biggest economy’s key goals and aspirations.
The country’s highest political body, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party annually convenes meetings, known as a Plenum.
The Fourth Plenary session will take place from October 20 to 23, 2025 in Beijing where authorities from top echelons will draw and discuss the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) and other issues related to governance and policy reforms.
The session comes as China’s third quarter GDP growth hits the slowest pace due to the country’s fragile domestic growth and increasing reliance on manufacturing production and exports.
Recent GDP showed growth of 4.8 percent in the third quarter, keeping the economy on track with the expansion of 5 percent this year in the midst of escalating trade tensions with the US.
However, the upcoming Five-Year plan will not only define the country’s economic trajectory but also shape the global economy.
According to Hui Shan, chief China economist at Goldman Sachs, “The meat of the 15th five-year plan probably will be to show determined support for technology, innovation and security.”
Neil Thomas, a fellow in Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute said, "Western policy works on election cycles, but Chinese policy making operates on planning cycles.”
"Five Year Plans spell out what China wants to achieve, signal the direction the leadership wants to go in and move the resources of the state towards these predefined conclusions," he adds.
As reported by Financial Times, Beijing will adopt the same blueprint in the next plan, which will officially be adopted in March. The blueprint will revolve around state-led heavy investment in state-of-the-art technologies to wean off its reliance on exports and promote industrial and technological self-reliance.
According to Communist party mouthpiece People’s Daily which issued a statement in July, “The pursuit of greater self-reliance and strength in science and technology is indispensable for securing critical technological advantages.”
As per Yuhan Zhang, principal economist of the China Center at the Conference Board, the next economic plan will continue aligning resources with the country's ambitions in strategic emerging industries, including new energy, AI, advanced manufacturing, and “future industries” like brain-computer interfaces.
According to some economists’ speculations, China in the next plan will try to uplift household spending by setting numerical targets. Compared to 68 percent of US consumption, China’s household consumption to GDP is around 40 percent only.
Most economists anticipate that the next five-year plan will be bereft of any specific target. The country would witness a growth rate of between 4.7-4.8 percent a year based on Xi Jinping’s call to double GDP between 2020 and 2035.
According to Standard Chartered economists Shuang Ding and Hunter Chan, “We estimate that China’s potential growth could average 4.3 per cent in the next five years.”