As 2026 marks the beginning of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, regional legislatures across China have recently convened to outline development blueprints for the next five years and set key targets for the year 2026. These meetings offer a clear view into the underlying strengths supporting China's steady and sustained economic growth.

This year's local government work reports highlight three distinct characteristics: building regionally coordinated development through differentiated positioning, reshaping competitive advantages by fostering new productive forces, and stimulating market vitality via an expanded domestic demand strategy.

In setting GDP growth targets, regional authorities have adhered to a pragmatic and progressive approach, utilizing differentiated goals to achieve coordinated regional efforts. Major economic provinces are playing a stabilizing role with moderate targets: Guangdong aims for 4.5% to 5%, Zhejiang for 5% to 5.5%, while Jiangsu, Shandong, and Henan target around 5%, above 5%, and approximately 5% respectively. Tibet has set the highest growth expectation, targeting over 7% increase in regional GDP this year, with Hainan and Xinjiang aiming for about 6% and 5.5% to 6% growth respectively, demonstrating strong growth momentum.

Currently, developing new productive forces has become imperative rather than optional for all regions. Cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, biomedicine, commercial aerospace, and quantum technology have emerged as focal points in local legislative meetings. For instance, Zhejiang emphasized building emerging pillar industries and supporting clusters in new materials, new energy, and integrated circuits. Guangdong plans to strengthen future industry layouts by advancing sixth-generation mobile communication, embodied intelligence, cell and gene therapy, brain science and brain-computer interfaces, hydrogen and advanced nuclear energy, deep-sea exploration, and quantum technology. These initiatives indicate regions are actively positioning themselves in emerging and future industries, driving continuous optimization and upgrading of China's economic structure.

For 2026, expanding domestic demand has been given heightened prominence. On the consumption front, many provincial governments have prioritized stimulating consumption, shifting focus from mere commodity consumption to new formats like cultural tourism, sports, elderly care, childcare, and digital intelligence consumption. Regarding investment, regions are no longer pursuing scale blindly but instead emphasizing "optimizing investment structure." Beijing proposed creating new consumption scenarios in leisure, fashion, waterfront, and ice-snow activities. Chongqing plans to develop silver economy, debut economy, ticket economy, and emotional economy. Zhejiang aims to cultivate more hit IPs combining cultural tourism and consumption.

Those who understand trends possess wisdom; those who master trends achieve victory. The setting of local GDP targets reflects both scientific assessment of current economic conditions and firm confidence in future development. From eastern coastal areas to western inland regions, from traditional manufacturing to future industries, and from investment-driven to consumption-led growth, a high-quality economic development landscape characterized by regional coordination, innovation drive, and domestic demand stimulation is gradually unfolding across China.