20th CPC Central Committee to hold fourth plenary session in October

The fourth plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee will be held in Beijing in October, according to a decision made at a CPC Central Committee Political Bureau meeting on Wednesday.

According to the main agenda of the session, the Political Bureau will report its work to the CPC Central Committee, and the session will study the proposals for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) for national economic and social development.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, chaired Wednesday's meeting.

The meeting also analyzed and studied the current economic situation and made arrangements for economic work in the second half of this year.

It was noted at the meeting that the 15th Five-Year Plan period is a crucial phase for consolidating the foundation and making all-round efforts to basically realize socialist modernization.

China's development is facing profound and complex changes, as strategic opportunities, risks, and challenges are concurrent and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising. Meanwhile, the country's economy is underpinned by a stable foundation, multiple advantages, strong resilience, and great potential, and the supporting conditions and fundamental trends for long-term sound economic development have not changed. The strengths of socialism with Chinese characteristics as well as the country's enormous market, complete industrial system and abundant talent resources are becoming more pronounced, according to the meeting.

To promote the economic and social development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China will fully and faithfully implement the new development philosophy on all fronts, adhere to the general principle of seeking progress while maintaining stability, and accelerate the forging of a new development paradigm.

During the period, China will continue to balance development and security, effectively upgrade and appropriately expand economic output, advance people's comprehensive development, and make solid progress toward common prosperity, so as to secure decisive progress toward the basic realization of socialist modernization.

Since the beginning of this year, China's economy has posted stable growth and made progress, and new achievements have been made in high-quality development. The meeting urged a good job in economic work in the second half of the year, with focus on stabilizing employment, businesses, markets and expectations, and effectively promoting the positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows.

Macro policies should be continuously strengthened and intensified in a timely manner, the meeting said, stressing implementing and refining a more proactive fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy.

Efforts should be made to accelerate the issuance and utilization of government bonds and enhance the efficiency of fund utilization. Monetary policy should maintain ample liquidity and reduce the overall social financing cost.

It is imperative to make good use of various structural monetary policy tools to intensify support for scientific and technological innovation, boost consumption, support small and micro enterprises, and stabilize foreign trade, according to the meeting, which underlined a crucial role the country's provincial economic powerhouses have to play in driving growth.

The meeting stressed the need to effectively unleash potential in domestic demand, and encourage goods consumption while fostering new growth drivers of services consumption.

It is necessary to spur consumption demand while securing and improving people's livelihood, stimulate the vitality of private investment, and expand effective investment, according to the meeting.

The meeting also called for efforts to accelerate the cultivation of emerging pillar industries with global competitiveness, promote the deep integration and development of sci-tech and industrial innovation, and push forward the building of a unified national market.

China will further regulate disorderly competition among enterprises in accordance with laws and regulations, and advance the management of production capacity in key industries, according to the meeting.

High-level opening up should be expanded to stabilize the fundamentals of foreign trade and investment. Efforts should be made to support foreign trade enterprises significantly affected and strengthen financial support. Export tax rebate policies should be optimized, and high-standard development of pilot free trade zones and other opening-up platforms should be advanced.

The meeting also stressed the need to continuously prevent and defuse risks in key areas. Urban renewal should be promoted with high quality, and risks related to local government debt should be defused in an active and prudent manner. The attractiveness and inclusiveness of domestic capital markets should be further enhanced.

The meeting highlighted the employment-first policy to promote job opportunities for key groups, and called for improving the multi-tiered and categorized social assistance system.

It also stressed the efforts to maintain reasonable prices for grain and major agricultural products, and ensure that no large-scale lapsing or relapsing into poverty occurs.

The meeting also emphasized strengthening production safety and food safety supervision, making every effort to carry out flood control, emergency rescue and disaster relief, and ensuring energy and power supply during the summer peak period.

Officials should carry out economic work in line with the new development philosophy, and entrepreneurs are encouraged to gain market competitiveness through high-quality products and services, it added.