As 2026 marks the inaugural year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, provinces across China are intensifying efforts to secure a strong economic start. Recently, multiple provinces convened their "first meetings of the new year" for 2026, centering on themes such as major project construction, technological innovation, enhancing development capabilities, and optimizing the business environment. For instance, Hainan explicitly emphasized expanding the import and supply of high-quality goods and services, refining its "three consumption pillars" of offshore duty-free shopping, healthcare and wellness, and international education, while fostering innovative development in new consumption patterns, particularly service consumption. Some provinces have outlined clear strategies for managing economic work in the first quarter of 2026, while others have introduced specialized action plans. Guangdong, for example, stressed the need to advance work schedules, front-load fund utilization, accelerate project implementation, and ensure timely policy rollouts, striving to achieve a "favorable opening" for 2026. Meanwhile, Beijing released the "Artificial Intelligence Innovation Highland Construction Action Plan," aiming to propel its core AI industry scale to exceed 10 trillion yuan within the next two years.

Greater efforts are being directed toward promoting technological innovation. On January 4, at the 2026 Hubei Provincial Science and Technology Innovation Conference, Hubei Party Secretary Wang Zhonglin stated that the 15th Five-Year Plan period will see intensified implementation of the sci-tech innovation leadership strategy, striving to establish Hubei as a hub for original innovation, new quality productive forces, talent attraction, and innovation ecosystem demonstration, thereby providing robust support for accelerating the rise of the central region. Wang emphasized that key tasks for building the sci-tech innovation highland in 2026 include leveraging the role of national laboratories, Hubei laboratories, major sci-tech infrastructure, and new R&D institutions, advancing the "61020" full-chain research initiatives, refining the "sharp knife" project relay mechanism, and deepening the "Ten-Hundred-Thousand" strategic talent initiative. Continuous promotion of enterprise-led industry-university-research collaborative innovation is also crucial, alongside nurturing tech entrepreneurs and technology managers, and effectively utilizing concept validation and pilot-scale platforms. Efforts will focus on accelerating the development of a modern industrial system reflecting Hubei's advantages through sci-tech leadership, strengthening core areas like the East Lake Science City and the Wuhan-Huanggang-Huangshi-Xianning Sci-Tech Innovation Corridor, building a collaborative sci-tech innovation community in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River urban agglomeration, and solidifying the "Central Triangle" of Hubei-Hunan-Jiangxi synergistic innovation.

On January 5, at the 2026 Beijing Artificial Intelligence Innovation Highland Construction Promotion Conference, Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission Director Yang Xiuling unveiled the Beijing AI Innovation Highland Construction Action Plan, dubbed the "Nine Major Actions." These include initiatives for technological innovation sourcing, strengthening independent AI computing ecosystems, aggregating high-quality data, enabling comprehensive application empowerment, revolutionizing scientific AI paradigms, achieving full-chain breakthroughs in embodied AI, leading innovation ecosystems, fostering open-source collaboration, and ensuring safety governance. In 2025, Beijing's core AI industry scale is projected to reach 450 billion yuan, with over 2,500 enterprises clustered in the sector. For instance, in the computing infrastructure layer, Beijing hosts domestic chip manufacturers like Cambricon, Moore Threads, Kunlun Chip, and Qingwei Intelligence with diverse architectures; at the model layer, it boasts four foundational models—Douyin's Doubao, Zhipu's GLM, Moon Dark Side's Kimi, and Baidu's Wenxin—alongside numerous vertical model matrices. Through the implementation of these "Nine Major Actions," Beijing aims to achieve a core AI industry scale exceeding 10 trillion yuan within two years, positioning itself as a global AI innovation hub with technological sourcing capabilities and industrial competitiveness. Yang expressed hopes that within approximately two years, fundamental theories and core technologies in AI will see significant original breakthroughs, yielding more pioneering achievements, with scientific AI and embodied AI reaching globally leading levels. By then, Beijing expects to achieve basic self-sufficiency in computing power, establishing a 100,000-card-level domestic AI computing cluster; adding over 100 PB of high-quality data; implementing more than 100 benchmark AI applications; accumulating over 200 billion yuan in various industrial investment funds; adding over 10 listed companies and 20 unicorns in the AI sector; and surpassing 10 trillion yuan in core AI industry scale, preliminarily forming a new intelligent economic形态.

Shanghai University of Finance and Economics President Liu Yuanchun indicated that economic work in 2026 is expected to unfold along two main lines: first, short-term expansion of domestic demand and risk control to counter cyclical downward pressures, promoting bottoming and rebound in investment and real estate cycles; second, continuous construction of an innovation-driven growth model, focusing on systematic layouts for modern industrial systems and sci-tech self-reliance, fostering cross-cycle strengths in basic research, industrial upgrading, and sci-tech finance, while further enhancing micro-entities' profitability to lay a solid foundation for medium- to long-term stable economic development.

Major projects are accelerating their commencement and construction. On January 4, Henan Province held its "first meeting of the new year"—the 2026 Provincial Major Project Construction and High-Quality Manufacturing Development Mobilization Deployment Meeting in Kaifeng City. Henan Party Secretary Liu Ning emphasized organically combining infrastructure projects with optimizing industrial projects, planning and implementing a batch of infrastructure projects in comprehensive transportation systems, new energy systems, modern water networks, and urban renewal with an eye toward moderate超前 and quality efficiency. Deep alignment with the national new round of key industrial chain high-quality development actions will promote strengthening, supplementing, extending, and building chains, making chain projects "more numerous" and industrial chains "stronger." Capturing projects and expanding investment serve as powerful supports for driving regional economic growth. Information from the Henan Provincial Development and Reform Commission shows that in the first quarter of 2026, Henan plans to commence major projects valued over 100 million yuan, primarily in advanced manufacturing and major infrastructure. Manufacturing projects account for about 70% in both number and investment volume, predominantly featuring emerging or future industries.

Yunnan Province's "first meeting of the new year" also focused on major projects, explicitly highlighting the need to "improve investment efficiency." On January 4, the Yunnan Provincial Government convened the Provincial High-Quality Development Work Promotion and Project Work Conference. The Yunnan Provincial Party Committee and Government designated 2026 as the "Project攻坚Year." The meeting emphasized that 2026 will involve in-depth implementation of "Nine Major攻坚Actions": project planning and reserve, improving investment efficiency, industrial park quality and efficiency enhancement, accelerating project construction, strengthening factor guarantees, expanding industrial investment, boosting private investment, standardizing investment promotion, and optimizing the business environment. Efforts will focus on meticulously planning and implementing projects that build foundations and benefit long-term development, while urgently advancing projects that can quickly form physical工作量. Strict controls on project entry must be maintained to enhance project "gold content." Industrial projects are prioritized as the重中之重, cultivating and expanding advantageous industries through effective investment to achieve returns on investment, corporate profits, employee income, and government tax revenue. Yunnan's industrial investment proportion has exceeded 50% for three consecutive years, shifting from reliance on transportation and real estate investment to industrial investment-driven growth. Information from various cities in Yunnan indicates that many major projects have already commenced construction in the first quarter of 2026. For example, Kunming has started construction on major projects like Shandong Longma Machinery and the Kunshi Expressway, while民生projects such as aging gas pipeline updates in main urban areas and ordinary high schools are also accelerating.

Vigorous efforts are underway to boost consumption. The Guangdong Provincial Government Executive Meeting held on January 5 emphasized fully advancing work schedules, front-loading fund usage, accelerating project implementation, and ensuring timely policy落地, striving to accomplish January's tasks solidly to lay a foundation for successfully completing first-quarter targets. The meeting stressed grasping current economic operations, promptly executing task decomposition, fund allocation, and project advancement, strengthening industrial support, deeply conducting "I Help Enterprises Find Markets" activities, coordinating consumption promotion and service industry development, and meticulously organizing events like "Come to Guangdong for the New Year" and "Winter Study Tours to Guangdong," while steadily stabilizing foreign trade and investment. Emphasis was placed on current project construction, investment promotion, and project reserves, formulating proactive and detailed investment plans, accelerating project progress, activating private investment, and enhancing领导干部leadership in engaging enterprises to swiftly ignite热潮in investment and talent attraction. On January 1, all 21 prefecture-level cities in Guangdong launched 2026 "national subsidy" activities, continuing to include key goods like automobiles, refrigerators, washing machines, and mobile phones in the "national subsidy" scope. Data from the Guangdong Department of Commerce shows that from January 1 to 3, province-wide consumer goods replacement and "Guangdong Quality Products Purchase" activities achieved sales of 2.42 billion yuan, benefiting 312,000 person-times.

National Development and Reform Commission Investment Research Institute researcher Wu Yaping noted that the 2026 consumer goods replacement policy has been optimized, applying proportional subsidies based on price for key goods like automobiles, home appliances, digital and smart products, while setting subsidy caps. This better reflects the inclusivity of the "two new" policies and facilitates the guiding and amplifying effects of the policies. On January 4, the Hainan Provincial Party Committee held a High-Standard Construction of Hainan Free Trade Port Promotion Conference in Haikou. The meeting emphasized that 2026 is not only the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan but also the first year post island-wide customs closure. Taking the island-wide closure as a new starting point, efforts will focus on high-standard construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port, striving to make it a leading gateway for China's new era of opening up. The meeting called for promoting domestic demand stimulation and opening up expansion in tandem, deeply implementing consumption-boosting special actions, expanding imports and supply of high-quality goods and services, refining the "three consumption pillars," and innovating new consumption, especially service consumption. Focusing on industries, transportation, energy, and民生sectors, targeting chain supplementation and extension, will全力expand effective investment, while relaxing market access in key areas like tourism, healthcare, transportation, and finance. On December 18, 2025, Hainan Island officially commenced island-wide customs closure. Reflecting on Hainan's 2025 economic performance, key areas like offshore duty-free and industrial development showed commendable results, with annual GDP expected to surpass 800 billion yuan. From January to November 2025, Hainan's total retail sales of consumer goods累计reached 244.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%, ranking among the top nationally; value-added of industries above designated size grew 10.4% year-on-year, driven significantly by advanced manufacturing; actual utilized foreign capital surged 51.5%, highlighting strong外向型economic performance. On December 31, 2025, Hainan Provincial Development and Reform Commission Deputy Director Jiang Hong stated at a provincial press conference that policy dividends of the Hainan Free Trade Port are accelerating post-closure. Next steps involve building a modern industrial system with Hainan characteristics, accelerating the "45432" industrial framework, promoting chain supplementation and upgrading in four leading industries, focusing on "Five-Directional Strengthening" to create an important实践地for new quality productive forces,布局future industries, refining the "three consumption pillars" of offshore duty-free, healthcare and wellness, and international education, and enhancing the appeal of Hainan's International Tourism Consumption Center.