Workers assemble robots in Wuhu city, East China's Anhui Province on August 12, 2025. The city is building a national-level robotics industry cluster, bringing more than 300 upstream and downstream companies, forming a comprehensive industrial chain ecosystem encompassing complete machines, core components, and system integration. Photo: VCG

Local governments across China have ramped up efforts with focusing agenda of the upcoming 2026, the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), with provinces and major cities highlighting booming sectors, ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) to humanoid robots and the low-altitude economy as focuses of development ahead.

As higher strategic priority will be given to fostering new quality productive forces in line with local conditions in the next five years, a Chinese analyst said that the new booming technology-oriented sectors will bring about industrial upgrading, talent demand, while injecting new impetus into the sustainable development of the real economy ahead.

Recently, several provinces have released their local 15th Five-Year Plan recommendations,outlining a more detailed picture of cultivating new quality productive forces and promoting industrial innovation, according to CCTV News.

Local planning

Beijing has proposed to foster a globally leading AI industry ecosystem and strengthen research on key core technologies such as high-end chips and foundational software, the CCTV News report said. 

New quality productive forces will be the key focus of the city's development. According to an article published on the official website of Beijing Municipality Government, the capital's 15th Five-Year Plan development path emphasizes "vigorously developing new quality productive forces" and "accelerating the construction of a high-level talent hub," placing technological innovation in a more central position.

East China's Zhejiang Province, the nation's innovation and production hub, is proposing to focus on building emerging pillar industries and accelerating the development of emerging industrial clusters in areas such as AI, aerospace, low-altitude economy and biomedicine.

Meanwhile, South China's Guangdong Province proposed to develop the "AI + robotics" sector into a high-tech, high-growth and large-scale industrial clusters, aiming to forge more industrial clusters at the trillion-yuan and hundred-billion-yuan scale, CCTV reported.

In East China's Fujian Province, the local government vows to closely focus on consolidating the foundation of the real economy, continuously promote the deep integration of technological and industrial innovation, improve the coordinated policies and mechanisms for education, science and talent development, and strengthen independent innovation capabilities, the Fujian Daily reported.

The five-year plans have always played a positive role in promoting local economic development, as the continuity of policies provides local governments with greater room for long-term planning, Li Changan, a professor at the Academy of China Open Economy Studies under the University of International Business and Economics, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Among the plans, technology and innovation has played an increasingly important role as the nation pursues high-quality development, said the expert.

Since the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), China's economic aggregate has consecutively crossed three major thresholds, reaching around 140 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 5.5 percent supporting an enormous incremental increase of over 35 trillion yuan, the Xinhua News Agency reported. By 2024, the total R&D expenditure of the whole society had grown by nearly 50 percent compared with the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), said the report.

Based on what has already been achieved, Li said that the plans for the next five years are primarily focused on emerging industries, as the development of emerging industrial clusters not only helps to cultivate new economic growth points, but also generates positive spillover effects in attracting high-end talent, upgrading employment structures, and promoting the development of related supporting industries.

New momentum

The regional developments for the next five years are also in line with the nation's fiscal plan, which, according to the government, is expected to introduce more proactive supportive policies in the upcoming 2026.

China will continue to adopt a more proactive fiscal policy next year, expanding fiscal expenditure to maintain the necessary intensity of spending, Finance Minister Lan Fo'an said at the national fiscal work conference held from Saturday to Sunday, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Specifically, the meeting called for focusing on several key tasks in fiscal work in 2026, including actively expanding effective investment and increasing funding for key areas such as new quality productive forces, according to the official website of China's Ministry of Finance (MOF) on Sunday.

Fiscal investment in science and technology will be further increased, management of fiscal science and technology funds will be improved, and the leading role of enterprises in technological innovation will be strengthened, said the MOF.

Moreover, key actions will be taken to promote high-quality development of major manufacturing industry chains, pilot cities will implement a new round of technology upgrades in the manufacturing sector, and the construction of a modern industrial system will be accelerated.

The fiscal support has underscored the government's determination in promoting new quality productive forces, the new momentum in the social and economic development, experts said.

The development focus on frontier industries will help support investment, drive the construction of related infrastructure, equipment upgrades and upstream and downstream supply chain demand, Cao Heping, an economist at Peking University, told the Global Times on Sunday, noting that it also plays a positive role in injecting new momentum in local economic developments and offsetting the easing of traditional investment.

In a further note, Cao said that the accelerated development of industries such as AI, robotics, and biomanufacturing will drive the transformation of the economic structure from being traditionally factor-driven to innovation-driven, increasing the share of high-tech and strategic emerging industries in the real economy.