Consolidation of recovery highlighted

China's top leadership has called for stronger and more concrete measures to consolidate the country's economic recovery, expand domestic demand and guard against risks, as the world's second-largest economy seeks a strong start to the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period.

The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, at a meeting on Tuesday presided over by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, analyzed and studied the current economic situation and economic work.

China's economy has got off to a robust start this year, with key indicators beating expectations, demonstrating its resilience and dynamism, according to the meeting.

At the same time, the economy still faces some difficulties and challenges, and the foundation for sustained and steady improvement needs to be further consolidated, the meeting said, stressing the need to boost confidence.

China's gross domestic product grew 5 percent year-on-year to 33.4 trillion yuan ($4.87 trillion) in the first quarter of 2026, 0.5 percentage points faster than in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

The Political Bureau stressed the need to unswervingly deepen reform and opening-up, promote self-reliance and strength in science and technology, and build self-supporting and risk-controllable industrial chains.

It called for targeted and effective implementation of a more proactive fiscal policy and an appropriately accommodative monetary policy, as well as continued efforts to expand domestic demand and optimize supply.

More work should be done to strengthen the domestic economy and improve domestic and international economic flows in order to get the 15th Five-Year Plan period off to a good start, said the meeting.

It was emphasized that China should make full use of macro policies, optimize fiscal spending structures, and make monetary policy more forward-looking, flexible and targeted. The meeting also called for keeping the renminbi exchange rate basically stable at a reasonable and balanced level.

To further tap the potential of domestic demand, efforts should be made to expand the supply of quality goods and services to drive consumption upgrading, it said.

The meeting also called for stepping up the planning and construction of water networks, new-type power grids, computing infrastructure, new-generation communications networks, urban underground pipelines and logistics networks.

Efforts should be made to promote the commencement of major engineering projects where the conditions are ripe, it said.

The meeting emphasized the need to accelerate the building of a modernized industrial system and maintain a reasonable share of manufacturing in the economy, as well as further enhancing the building of a unified national market and making further efforts to address involution-style competition.

China will fully implement the "AI Plus" initiative, develop new forms of intelligent economy and improve governance of artificial intelligence, said the meeting.

It called for a systematic response to external shocks and challenges, stronger safeguards for energy and resource security, and efforts to counter various uncertainties with the certainty of high-quality development.

The meeting underlined the need to effectively prevent and defuse risks in key areas, strive to stabilize the property market, resolve local government debt risks in an orderly manner, and stabilize and boost confidence in capital markets.

"With the meeting stressing bolstering confidence with stronger and more concrete measures, the economy's positive momentum is likely to continue amid sustained policy support, securing the annual GDP growth target," said Ming Ming, chief economist at CITIC Securities.

The meeting's emphasis on the "precision and effectiveness" of macroeconomic adjustments may signal greater use of structural monetary tools, with liquidity conditions likely to remain accommodative, Ming said.

Ming added that the meeting placed greater emphasis on improving the quality and adaptability of supply to better match domestic demand, as policymakers seek to further address the relatively slow pickup in consumption this year, compared with resilient external demand.