How China's key provincial economies gear up for 15th Five-Year Plan

For four consecutive years, Chinese President Xi Jinping has joined fellow deputies from the Jiangsu delegation during the Two Sessions, the annual gatherings of the country's top legislature and top political advisory body, to deliberate on the future of one of China's largest economic provinces.

In 2023, Xi's guidance centered on high-quality development. In 2024, it shifted to tailoring new quality productive forces to local conditions. In 2025, the call was for economic powerhouses to play a major role in national development. On Thursday, the instruction sharpened still further: these provinces must now redouble their efforts to study new situations and solve new problems.

The evolving guidance tells a consistent story: as China embarks on the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), a pivotal phase for advancing socialist modernization, its economic heavyweights must shoulder greater responsibilities to deliver national growth.

Locomotives of the Chinese economy

The numbers don't lie – these provinces are the engines of China's economy. In 2025, China's top ten provincial-level economies – Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Henan, Hubei, Fujian, Shanghai and Hunan – accounted for a staggering 62.2% of national growth, single-handedly contributing 3.1 percentage points to China's GDP. That outsized contribution cements their status as the country's indispensable locomotives.

Their 2026 growth targets align closely with the national goal of 4.5–5%. Guangdong, the biggest, aims for 4.5–5%; Jiangsu for 5%; Shandong for above 5%; Zhejiang for 5–5.5%. Sichuan and Hubei target roughly 5.5%, while Henan, Fujian, Shanghai and Hunan set their sights on approximately 5%. Many have also pledged to exceed formal targets through determined implementation, matching the central government's commitment to strive for better outcomes in practice.

Their economic heft stems from more than just sheer scale. These provinces, clustered on China's coast and in key industrial heartlands, sit at the forefront of the country's reform and opening-up endeavor. They boast world-class advanced manufacturing hubs, high R&D intensity, and mature innovation ecosystems, making them incubators for technological breakthroughs. Their advanced industrialization and marketization also grant them crucial resilience to external headwinds.

Priorities for the 15th Five-Year Plan

As the new five-year plan begins, these regional powerhouses face a dual task: navigating a more volatile global landscape while addressing deep-seated domestic challenges.

At the core of China's next development phase is the pursuit of new quality productive forces, a concept referring to innovation-driven and high-efficient productivity underpinned by technological breakthroughs, industrial upgrading and institutional reform.

The Chinese president's guidance for major provincial economies, delivered during Thursday's deliberations, is unequivocal: first and foremost, lead the charge on new quality productive forces. This means:

Securing new breakthroughs in core technologies to win the global tech race.

Forging new pathways that connect labs to markets, linking innovation, industry, capital and talent.

Opening new horizons by upgrading traditional sectors while nurturing emerging and future industries. 

And delivering results through reforms that clear the institutional hurdles holding back progress.

A second priority is fortifying economic resilience. As pillars of the national economy, major provinces are the first line of defense against external shocks. This mandates deeper integration into the unified national market – a long-standing effort to build a seamless domestic market for goods, services and production factors – greater high-level opening to global markets, and adopting a bottom-line mindset to guard against various risks.

The third pillar is prosperity for all, a defining goal of Chinese modernization. For China's leading regions, this translates into policies to expand high-quality employment, raise urban and rural household incomes, improve public services and strengthen social security. The aim is to ensure the fruits of growth are distributed further and wider.

Taken together, these objectives position China's major economic provinces as catalysts for innovation, anchors of macroeconomic resilience and grounds for inclusive growth. Their ability to deliver on these fronts will shape not only their own trajectories, but also the direction of China's national development in a more fragmented and competitive world.