An employee conducts welding operation in a workshop in Haikou National Hi-tech Industrial Development Park in south China's Hainan Province, Nov. 14, 2025. (Xinhua/Pu Xiaoxu)

China has decided to allocate first tranche of 93.6 billion yuan ($13.4 billion) from its ultra-long special treasury bond funds to support equipment upgrading in major economic sectors, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planner, said on Thursday.

The funds will support about 4,500 projects across a diverse range of sectors including industry, energy equipment, education, healthcare, grain and oil production and processing, customs inspection, the replacement of aging residential elevators, energy efficiency and carbon-reduction initiatives, as well as recycling and circular-economy applications. The funds are expected to drive more than 460 billion yuan in total investment.

In addition to these project-specific allocations, the NDRC said that it has transferred funds directly to local governments to continue targeted programs such as scrapping and replacing old trucks, updating urban bus fleets with new-energy vehicles and phasing out obsolete agricultural machinery.

Dong Shaopeng, a senior research fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Thursday that issuing ultra-long special treasury bonds to support equipment upgrading is a significant move, as it gives companies access to low-cost financing, spurring faster technological transformation and increased research and development investment. 

The move is expected to create greater market demand for emerging industries and technologies and trigger a chain reaction that drives the recruitment of high-end talent, boosts household incomes and stimulates consumption.

Since the beginning of 2026, the NDRC has worked with relevant government agencies and local authorities to broaden the scope of equipment-upgrade, streamline project applications, and conduct rigorous screening of proposals in key sectors.

The NDRC will collaborate with relevant parties to strengthen coordination, advance projects, accelerate on-the-ground progress and enforce closed-loop fund management to ensure that central government resources are used efficiently, it said.

According to Dong, ultra-long-term special treasury bonds are designed to serve two principal objectives. First, they provide stable funding for critical public infrastructure that underpins the national economy and daily life, from power grids and schools to the replacement of aging residential elevators and upgrades to customs inspection facilities, ensuring the safe and reliable delivery of basic public services.

Second, the funds raised by the bonds support the country's green development agenda by financing energy-saving, carbon-reduction and environmental-recycling projects. These investments are also expected to leverage broader social capital, drawing private investment into areas such as artificial intelligence, computing capacity, big data and industrial digitalization.

Dong said that such issuances will advance the development of China's bond market, promote yuan-denominated assets, broaden investor options and improve the capital market.

"The new stimulus policy plays an irreplaceable role in promoting stable economic growth and stimulating domestic investment," Tian Yun, an economist based in Beijing, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

He highlighted the government's supportive policies for boosting domestic consumption, including trade-in programs for consumer goods, which continue to show significant effects. Whether for upgrading production equipment or transportation vehicles, these programs have played a pivotal role in stabilizing investment growth, he said.

Tian noted that it is crucial to ensure the quality and selection of projects using these special treasury bonds, preventing them from being diverted to other purposes by local governments. 

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on January 19, China's GDP last year reached 140.19 trillion yuan, up 5 percent year-on-year at constant prices and meeting the annual growth target of about 5 percent, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The added-value of the manufacturing sector reached 34.7 trillion yuan in 2025, up 6.1 percent year-on-year, keeping its share of GDP at 25 percent, with equipment manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing accounting for 36.8 percent and 17.1 percent of value-added industrial output, respectively, the NBS said.