BEIJING, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Aiming at planning key tasks for the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) and setting new development priorities, various local authorities across China have held their "first meetings of the new year" one after another.
"These 'first meetings' across regions showcase a fresh momentum of high-quality development, as regions move with determination to anchor the crucial starting point for the 15th Five-Year Plan," said Tian Lihui, dean of the Institute of Finance and Development at Nankai University.
He emphasized that this is not just an "opening move" but a profound transformation in development concepts, shifting from "policy supply" to "targeted services" and from "single-point breakthroughs" to "ecosystem construction."
OPTIMIZING BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
The business environment can always be improved. In the new year, Fujian, Shanghai, Liaoning, and other regions have clearly demonstrated their unwavering determination to continuously enhance the business environment.
At a conference aiming to optimize the business environment in Fujian, eastern China, relevant officials stated that they would focus on key areas and drive improvements in the province's business environment through practical actions.
They emphasized ensuring fairness and promoting transparency in market access. Additionally, efforts would be made to address issues in the corporate innovation ecosystem and encourage leading innovative enterprises to collaborate with upstream and downstream entities to build innovation consortia.
Shanghai Municipality, aiming to "take the lead in creating a market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized first-class business environment," has been releasing an annual action plan for optimizing the business environment. The latest edition proposes 26 measures.
"We hope to tackle an uncertain external environment with the certainty in optimizing the business environment, getting off to a good start for the 15th Five-Year Plan and accelerating our pace of development," said Chen Yanfeng, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission.
Liaoning, in northeast China, the country's old industrial base seeking revitalization, has taken a firm stance against long-standing issues in the business environment. The province put forward 34 specific measures in areas such as policies, market, government services, legal framework, and humanistic environment.
PROMOTING INNOVATION
Promoting scientific and technological innovation and cultivating new quality productive forces have become the core engines for many regions to plan their future development.
On the first working day of the new year, central China's Hubei held a sci-tech innovation conference to inject strong momentum into the overall improvement of its innovation-generating capacity. The province is now home to 547 new-type research and development institutions, covering key industrial chains in all its 17 cities and prefectures.
Wenzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province, which held its "first meeting of the new year" with a focus on innovation and development for five consecutive years, emphasized the need to achieve greater breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) innovation and development and corporate innovation capacity enhancement.
AI has become a keyword in sci-tech innovation. Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, released an action plan for AI innovation and applications, aiming to build more than 10 provincial-level innovation platforms and promote 30 sci-tech research projects through AI innovation consortia by 2027.
Suzhou, another economic powerhouse in Jiangsu, also laid out the "AI Plus" strategy at its "first meeting of the new year." The city plans to focus on eight areas, including cultivating large-scale industrial models, promoting typical application scenarios, and shaping intelligent terminal brands, to advance "AI Plus manufacturing."
STRENGTHENING TALENT CULTIVATION
Many regions have prioritized talent cultivation in their work at the beginning of this year. Fujian has made it clear that it will improve the whole-chain mechanism for talent development, including attraction, cultivation, retention, and utilization.
Bazhong, a city in southwest China's Sichuan Province, held its first city-wide conference of 2026 focusing on talent work. The meeting made it clear that it would identify talent gaps based on the needs of industrial development, sci-tech innovation, and people's livelihood undertakings.
East China's Anhui Province is strengthening talent cultivation for technological innovation and industrial development, providing robust talent support for regional growth. Over the past five years, Anhui has recruited 11,883 postdoctoral researchers, 65 percent of whom specialize in 10 emerging industries, including new energy vehicles, AI, and quantum technology.
To enhance talent retention and development, Anhui has implemented comprehensive one-stop services for postdoctoral entry, efficiently addressing key support measures like household registration and children's education.
"Overall, provinces are planning the opening of the 15th Five-Year Plan based on their own conditions, showing a trend of both differentiated development and regional coordination. Notably, sci-tech innovation and talent cultivation are placed at the strategic core, and local layouts are more closely integrated with industrial realities," said Dong Zhongyun, chief economist at AVIC Securities. ■
