What development opportunities lie within China's recommendations for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan? Since their release, global attention has focused on China's efforts to foster new growth drivers and strengthen economic momentum.
Terms such as "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality," "artificial intelligence" and "new quality productive forces" have become key concepts for understanding the new opportunities China is bringing to the world.
China's stable performance and steady progress remain a source of confidence and stability for the global economy. In recent weeks, major foreign financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley, have raised their expectations for China's economic growth, reaffirming the country's role as a stable and reliable engine of global growth.
In the first three quarters of this year, China's GDP grew by 5.2 percent year on year, and the full-year figure is expected to reach approximately 140 trillion yuan ($19.8 trillion), further consolidating China's position as the world's second-largest economy.
Consumption has increasingly become the primary driver of economic growth, while manufacturing investment has maintained robust expansion. At the same time, efforts to diversify markets have continued and strategies for international engagement have been further refined, strengthening China's economic fundamentals and overall stability.
Fajar B. Hirawan, a senior researcher at Indonesia's Institute for Development of Economics and Finance, noted that China's economic resilience is evident in its sustained growth and increasingly robust economic structure.
As China implements major national strategies, strengthens security capacities in key sectors, and ramps up support for a new round of large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-in programs, a unified national market is taking shape, injecting new momentum into steady economic growth.
A technician at a machinery manufacturer in Southwest China's Chongqing fine-tunes an AI-powered industrial vision inspection system. (Photo: People's Daily/ Sun Kaifang)
At the same time, new quality productive forces are rapidly reshaping China's growth landscape and becoming an important driver of high-quality development. Significant progress has been made in areas such as digital technology, AI and green industries. Installed wind and solar power capacity has surpassed 1.69 billion kilowatts, while new energy vehicles accounted for more than 50 percent of monthly new car sales for the first time and China has become the world's largest holder of AI-related patents.
China also leads globally in the number of innovation clusters, with 24 ranked among the world's top 100, and ranks second worldwide in the number of unicorn companies. A dynamic and evolving innovation ecosystem continues to drive technological breakthroughs and commercialization, making China one of the fastest-rising economies in terms of innovation capability.
The recommendations for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan outline forward-looking priorities in key areas such as high-end instruments, advanced materials and biomanufacturing. Innovation will play an increasingly pivotal role in transforming China's growth model, optimizing its economic structure, and cultivating new engines of development.
Unmanned rail transit cars are manufactured in a workshop at CRRC Puzhen Alstom Transportation System Limited in Wuhu, East China's Anhui Province. (Photo: People's Daily/ Xiao Benxiang)
Spanish economist Pedro Barragán observed that China's economy is entering a more mature phase, marked by a shift toward a people-centered, more balanced and innovation- and green-driven growth model.
China remains committed to openness, cooperation, and mutual benefit, and is steadily advancing institutional opening up to support other countries' development through its own high-quality growth. Its new development paradigm is not a closed domestic cycle, but a dynamic in which domestic and international circulations reinforce each other.
The country's 22 pilot free trade zones have aligned with high-standard international economic and trade rules. The negative list for foreign investment has been further shortened while the number of free trade agreements and partners continues to expand, underscoring China's determination to deepen high-standard opening up.
Pictured is the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port in East China's Zhejiang Province. (Photo: People's Daily/ Shen Yingjun)
From product trade and manufacturing investment to joint research and development, multinational companies such as Dow and AstraZeneca are expanding their presence in China, highlighting the continued appeal of the Chinese market and its improving institutional environment.
By advancing reform and development through opening up and pursuing win-win cooperation, China is set to play an increasingly influential role in global development.
With solid economic momentum, vibrant innovation, and a strong commitment to openness, China is well positioned for a strong start to the 15th Five-Year Plan period. As it advances toward modernization, China will continue to pursue higher-quality development and work with countries worldwide to share opportunities and achieve common prosperity.