The Dual Five-Year Horizon: The "Four Major Strategies" Sustaining a New Growth Cycle

 

At the historical juncture of concluding the 14th Five-Year Plan and formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan, facing the accelerated evolution of the world's century-old changes and the in-depth needs of high-quality development at home, the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) and the 16th Five-Year Plan, as key journeys toward the 2035 modernization goal, urgently need to layout development paths with a systematic mindset. The coordinated strategy of "grand reform + expanded bond issuance + enhanced welfare + full employment" is precisely the key to addressing development bottlenecks and activating endogenous drivers, which is expected to propel China's economy into a new growth cycle with greater resilience and quality.

 

Grand Reform: The "Core Engine" for Breaking Shackles and Empowering Growth

Reform is the fundamental driving force for development, which is particularly prominent during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. As a critical phase for completing over 300 major reform tasks outlined at the 3rd Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, its reform intensity and breakthrough efforts will directly determine the quality of growth . The core of grand reform lies in adjusting production relations to adapt to the development of productive forces: at the institutional level, it is necessary to deepen the market-oriented reform of factors, break industrial monopolies and regional barriers, and allow free flow of new production factors such as data and technology; at the industrial level, guided by the development of new-quality productive forces, promote the digital transformation of traditional manufacturing and the regulatory innovation of emerging industries, realizing the precise coordination between the "effective market" and the "capable government"; in the field of people's livelihood, through reforms of the household registration system and employment security system, remove obstacles to labor mobility and lay a solid institutional foundation for the "full employment" strategy. Only by addressing structural contradictions in development through reform can we open up space for a new round of growth.

 

Expanded Bond Issuance: The "Funding Link" for Targeted Investment to Fuel Strategy Implementation

Expanded bond issuance is not a simple scale expansion, but a targeted measure based on development needs. During the dual five-year period, bond proceeds should focus on two key directions: one is to support reform and people's livelihood projects, channeling funds into areas such as nurturing new-quality productive forces and building vocational skills training systems, which not only inject capital impetus into industrial upgrading but also consolidate the foundation for employment by improving labor quality; the other is to make up for shortcomings in public services, focusing on supporting "enhanced welfare" related projects such as rural modernization and the improvement of elderly care and medical facilities, realizing a virtuous cycle of "investment - people's livelihood - consumption". At the same time, a full-process risk prevention and control mechanism must be established to ensure that bond funds flow to high-efficiency, people's livelihood-oriented fields, avoiding the accumulation of debt risks and enabling funds to truly become a link connecting reform goals and people's livelihood needs.

 

Enhanced Welfare: The "Livelihood Pivot" for Activating Domestic Demand to Stabilize Growth

Enhanced welfare is not a simple accumulation of "welfarism", but a strategic choice to stimulate domestic demand through improving people's livelihoods. Data in 2024 shows that wage income and business income account for 73% of total household income, making employment and income the core sources of consumption . The key to enhanced welfare lies in building a security system compatible with economic development: at the basic security level, improve the national pooling of endowment insurance and expand the scope of medical insurance reimbursement, releasing residents' consumption potential through a "sense of security"; at the developmental welfare level, increase investment in education subsidies and vocational training, which not only improves labor quality to meet the needs of new-quality productive forces but also enhances consumption capacity by reducing the pressure of education expenditure. This "security + empowerment" welfare model can transform improvements in people's livelihoods into domestic demand drivers, providing stable support for growth.

 

Full Employment: The "Key Hub" for Smooth Circulation to Inject Vitality into Growth

Employment is the foundation of people's livelihoods and the core hub connecting economic growth and improvement of people's well-being. The core of the full employment strategy is to build an "employment-friendly development model" to achieve mutual promotion between economic growth and employment expansion . On the supply side, it is necessary to establish a lifelong vocational skills training system, align with the development needs of new-quality productive forces, and cultivate skilled talents in fields such as digital technology and green energy to alleviate structural employment contradictions; on the demand side, support the development of small and micro enterprises and new business forms through policies to leverage their role as "employment reservoirs", while guiding state-owned enterprises and platform enterprises to fulfill their social responsibilities in employment and expand the supply of high-quality jobs; on the matching side, build a national unified employment service platform, eliminate employment discrimination based on gender and age, and achieve precise matching of labor supply and demand. When the expansion of employment scale and income growth form a virtuous cycle, it will directly activate the consumer market and provide a steady stream of endogenous momentum for growth.

 

The four major strategies are not isolated but form an organic whole of "reform breaking bottlenecks - bond issuance supplying funds - welfare providing support - employment driving circulation". During the dual cycles of the 15th Five-Year Plan's connecting role and the 16th Five-Year Plan's sprint to the finish line, only by aligning these four strategies can we respond to the uncertainty of the external environment with a certain policy combination, drive China's economy from "high-speed growth" to "high-quality sustainable growth", and truly benefit all people from the achievements of development.