A sunrise view over Honglingjin Park and the CBD in Beijing on November 20, 2025 Photo: VCG

Beijing has set its annual GDP growth target at a rate between 4.5 and 5 percent for the next five years, starting this year, with ramped-up efforts to strive for even better results, according to the city's drafted 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) for economic and social development released on Sunday, the Beijing News reported on Sunday.

The plan was made public by Beijing mayor Yin Yong, as he delivered the local government work report during the fourth session of the 16th Beijing Municipal People's Congress, which opened on Sunday. The plan also sets 29 specific economic goals, including inn innovation, coordination, green development, opening up, sharing, and security.

According to the plan, from 2026 to 2030, Beijing aims to keep the city's R&D expenditure as a share of its total fiscal spending above 6 percent, achieve an average annual growth in service trade of around 5 percent, and maintain the urban surveyed unemployment rate within 5 percent, the Beijing News report noted. 

The capital will implement an action plan for stabilizing employment, aiming to create more than 280,000 new jobs this year. The city will also make efforts to stabilize employment for key groups such as college graduates, providing over than 100,000 employment positions for college graduates.

As to the development of cutting-edge industries, Beijing will promote the expansion of production capacity and mass production for key integrated circuit projects, build the international pharmaceutical innovation park at a high level and advance the full industry chain development of key projects in advanced green energy, new energy vehicles, robotics, commercial aerospace, and other fields, the Beijing Daily reported on Sunday.

It will also accelerate the construction of Beijing as a global leading city in digital economy, fully implementing the "Artificial Intelligence+" strategy, and establishing a national AI application testing base, while promoting the development of future industry zones to cultivate new growth drivers such as 6G, quantum technology and bio-manufacturing, according to the report. 

Earlier this month, Beijing announced that it became the second Chinese city to surpass 5 trillion yuan ($718 billion) in GDP in 2025. 
Beijing's regional GDP reached 5.21 trillion yuan last year, up 5.4 percent year-on-year, according to data released by the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday.

Global Times