The leadership of the Communist Party of China held a meeting on Friday to discuss a draft outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) for economic and social development and a draft government work report to be submitted by the State Council, China's Cabinet, to the upcoming annual session of the national legislature for review.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

It was noted at the meeting that the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25) marked a momentous and extraordinary period in China's development.

The CPC Central Committee with Xi at its core united the entire Party and Chinese people of all ethnic groups and led them in withstanding the severe shocks from the once-in-a-century COVID-19 pandemic, responding effectively to many major risks and challenges, and securing significant new achievements in the cause of the Party and the country, according to the meeting.

Noting that the 15th Five-Year Plan period will be critical as China works to reinforce the foundations and push ahead on all fronts toward the goal of basically realizing socialist modernization by 2035, the meeting said the scientific formulation and effective implementation of the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan under the leadership of the Party Central Committee will be of great significance in consolidating and building on strengths, removing development bottlenecks, and shoring up areas of weaknesses.

The meeting emphasized that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, it is important that China pursues economic development as the central task, with reform and innovation as the fundamental driving force and full and rigorous Party self-governance as the fundamental underpinning for all efforts.

It urged efforts to effectively upgrade the quality and appropriately expand the quantity of the economy, making solid headway in promoting people's well-rounded development and advancing common prosperity for all, and ensuring that decisive progress is made in basically realizing socialist modernization.

The meeting called for promoting democracy, pooling collective wisdom and broadly building consensus while the draft outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan is submitted to the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress for review and to the fourth session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference for discussions.

Regarding the government work for this year, the meeting said that it is essential to fully, faithfully, and comprehensively implement the new development philosophy, accelerate the building of the new development paradigm and focus on promoting high-quality development.

Underlining the need to uphold the overarching principle of seeking progress while maintaining stability, the meeting called for coordinating both domestic and international situations and better balancing development and security.

It is important to implement more proactive and effective macroeconomic policies, develop new quality productive forces tailored to local conditions, advance the construction of a unified national market, and continuously prevent and defuse risks in key areas, it said.

caodesheng@chinadaily.com.cn