Securities firms deeply interpret the “15th five-year” plan outline: Key Points To Watch

① The 15th Five-Year Plan outline was adopted at the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress on March 12; ② The outline abandons the sole GDP orientation, focusing on high-quality development at its core, and places significant importance on livelihood indicators; ③ The plan takes digitalization and intelligence as the core content of fostering new productive forces, with "emerging pillar industries" written into the plan for the first time; ④ The plan strengthens the foundation of development through institutional reform and security assurance, precisely identifying and mitigating potential risks in economic development.

At 3 p.m. on March 12, the Fourth Session of the 14th National People's Congress adopted a resolution on the Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development.

As the decisive foundational plan for basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035, the 15th Five-Year Plan Outline's most notable change is the abandonment of the sole GDP growth orientation, promoting a shift in local development priorities towards quality improvement, people's livelihood enhancement, and risk prevention through flexible goal setting. Additionally, it establishes an industry-forcing mechanism that deeply integrates innovation, digitalization, and green development through three hard constraint indicators.

Meanwhile, "emerging pillar industries" were written into the plan for the first time. The transition from digitalization to digital intelligence has become the core connotation of fostering new types of productivity. "Artificial Intelligence +" is thoroughly penetrating the real economy. The 109 major projects across six key areas proposed in the plan aim to leverage new infrastructure such as computing power networks, satellite internet, and 5G-Advanced, to drive trillions of yuan in investment opportunities in the industrial chain.

Multiple securities firms unanimously believe that the 15th Five-Year Plan is a top-level design that addresses current development challenges and cultivates new drivers of development for the long term. It focuses on core directions such as self-reliance in science and technology, digital and intelligent empowerment, and green and low-carbon development, while also emphasizing the strengthening of safety baselines and mitigating development risks. This will propel China's economy and society to steadily advance on the path of high-quality development, laying a solid foundation for achieving the 2030 development goals, and simultaneously bringing long-term structural investment opportunities to the capital market.

Core Planning Tone: Abandon the Sole GDP Orientation, Anchor on High-Quality Development Core

The most notable change in the release of the 15th Five-Year Plan outline is the repositioning of economic development goals, moving away from the past GDP-only development orientation, demonstrating China's firm determination to promote high-quality development.

The Shanghai Securities analysis pointed out that the GDP growth target for 2026 is set at 4.5% to 5.0%, slightly lower than the previous year. This adjustment reflects the leadership's strategic composure. By downplaying specific numerical targets, it can effectively prevent the introduction of excessive stimulus policies to stabilize growth, and promote the economy's shift towards improving quality and efficiency.

At the level of quantitative indicators, the plan establishes a robust industrial restructuring mechanism through three binding constraints: annual R&D expenditure growth exceeding 7%, the share of core digital economy industries in GDP increasing to 12.5%, and a cumulative 17% reduction in carbon emissions—working in concert to drive deep transformation of the industrial structure toward innovation, digitalization, and sustainability.

In addition, the plan places people's livelihood indicators in an important position, with the increase in years of education and the growth of care-type beds becoming key measures to promote the transformation of demographic dividends into "talent and structural dividends."

Dongguan Securities believes that the 15th Five-Year Plan represents the top-level design for China’s critical period of basically achieving socialist modernization. It continues the high-quality development theme of the 14th Five-Year Plan, while placing greater emphasis on systematic integration and security resilience. Its core positioning is to bridge the past and future, laying a decisive foundation for basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035.

Digital intelligence drives the emergence of new industries as pillar sectors.

Securities firms believe that the transition from “digitalization” to “intelligent digitalization” is the core essence of this plan’s initiative to foster new quality productive forces. Moreover, the inclusion of “emerging pillar industries” in the plan for the first time signifies that China’s emerging industries have entered a new phase of scaled-up contribution to economic growth.

Huayuan Securities points out that digitalization represents the singular empowerment of production processes by technology, whereas digital intelligence (digitalization + intelligence) denotes the deep integration of technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing, enabling intelligent coordination and autonomous decision-making across all factors, the entire process, and the full industrial chain—a systemic reconstruction of production methods.

In this context, the "AI +" initiative is no longer a mere slogan but is positioned as the core engine of new-type productivity, accelerating its penetration into manufacturing, agriculture, and services, becoming the core enabling mechanism for the development of new-type productivity.

For key sectors such as intelligent connected vehicles, high-end semiconductors, and new-energy equipment, subsequent policies will strengthen factor support and industrial chain coordination to drive these sectors to become core pillars of economic growth. Meanwhile, forward-looking industries like brain-computer interfaces, deep-sea exploration, and aerospace technology will leverage a new national mobilization system to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies, with supporting policies accelerating the commercialization of technological achievements and establishing them as new drivers of future economic growth.

Guosheng Securities has noticed two major new tasks in the draft outline of the plan compared to the proposal: one is the digital intelligence task, which proposes to deeply advance the construction of Digital China and continuously emphasize the development and investment opportunities of "AI+"; the other is the population task, which aims to improve the population development strategy, focusing on two areas: supporting childbirth and the silver economy, opening up new spaces for the development of related industries.

According to China Merchants Securities' analysis of ministry-level initiatives, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) focuses on new-type industrialization and new quality productive forces, the Ministry of Science and Technology strengthens breakthroughs in core critical technologies, and the National Energy Administration centers its efforts on advancing the green and low-carbon energy transition, with various ministries collaborating to promote the construction of a modern industrial system.

109 Projects Drive Investment, New Infrastructure Unleashes Trillion-Dollar Opportunities

The “15th Five-Year” Plan Outline proposes six major areas and 109 key projects, regarded as the core leverage for stimulating investment across society. Galaxy Securities and Huayuan Securities both point out that these projects precisely cover core areas including new-quality productive forces, infrastructure, integrated urban-rural development, livelihood improvement, green transition, and security assurance.

Guiding the new quality productive forces and infrastructure engineeringHuayuan Securities noted that the construction of the "computing power network, satellite internet, and 5G-Advanced" has been prioritized as a top strategic focus. Together, these three networks form the foundation of Digital China, unlocking trillion-level industrial investment opportunities.

Green transformation aspectThe outline clearly states the goal of promoting the construction of about 100 national zero-carbon parks. In the energy sector, the country will implement a "non-fossil energy decade doubling action," adhering to a diversified approach that includes wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear energy, to promote the safe and reliable substitution of non-fossil energy for fossil energy. Specific major projects include the "Yaxia Hydropower," the desert, Gobi, and wasteland renewable energy bases, as well as the construction of large-scale power transmission channels. The aim is to increase the share of non-fossil energy consumption to 25% by 2030, and to enhance the power transmission capacity from west to east to over 420 GW. This profound transformation of the energy structure is not only a requirement for environmental protection but also a strategic choice for national energy security.

People’s livelihood projects likewise exhibit a new logic.The people's livelihood and urban-rural projects no longer solely rely on government investment but instead leverage a model of government guidance and market-oriented operations to mobilize social capital for the construction of public service facilities such as smart health and wellness, and cultural tourism innovation. This approach not only addresses the shortcomings in people's livelihood but also successfully fosters new consumer hotspots, achieving a "win-win" in both improving people's livelihood and enhancing the quality of the economy.

Strengthen the foundation for development and mitigate three core risks.

High-quality development cannot be separated from institutional guarantees and safety bottom lines. This 15th Five-Year Plan focuses on institutional reform and security guarantees to consolidate the foundation for economic and social development.

In terms of fiscal and monetary policy, Shanghai Securities Analysis notes that government sector deleveraging will become a crucial pillar supporting economic growth in 2026; monetary policy will remain moderately accommodative, with the CPI growth target set at around 2%, aligning with international norms, and there remains a high probability of further interest rate cuts, providing a favorable monetary and financial environment for the real economy.

In terms of security assurance, the plan constructs a national survival and development security system with a mindset of extreme scenarios. Hua Yuan Securities pointed out that the plan clearly sets a grain production capacity target of 145 billion jin and an energy equivalent of 5.8 billion tons of coal, consolidating two major security barriers: food and energy. Food security is ensured through farmland protection and the revitalization of the seed industry to build an independent and self-sufficient system. Energy security achieves the unification of cleanliness and safety by adhering to the approach of "coal power as a backup and new energy as the main driver."

In response to potential risks in economic development, the plan focuses on three major risk sources—real estate, local government debt, and small and medium-sized financial institutions—adhering to the principle of steady risk resolution. It advances initiatives such as ensuring delivery of completed residential properties (“guaranteed project completion”), market-oriented transformation of urban investment platforms, and capital injection and restructuring of small and medium-sized financial institutions, resolutely safeguarding the bottom line against systemic financial risks. Galaxy Securities further highlights that resource security and industrial/industrial supply chain security have become core strategic priorities, with policy support tilted toward critical strategic minerals—including copper, aluminum, and lithium—to ensure autonomous and controllable industrial chains.

Capital markets present structural opportunities, with multiple thematic lines becoming the core focus for positioning.

For capital markets, the implementation of the 15th Five-Year Plan will continue the policy-driven momentum seen in previous five-year plans. Multiple brokerages believe that technological self-reliance and strength, green and low-carbon development, advanced manufacturing, and boosting domestic demand will become the core investment themes over the next five years.

Dongguan Securities, through historical backtesting, has found that the market during the planning and preparation period is often accompanied by a primary uptrend, with the technology and advanced manufacturing sectors performing actively. Currently, the manufacturing sector is continuously favored by capital, while the technology sector requires a focus on structural opportunities arising from the shift of AI computing power from the infrastructure layer to the application layer.

Galaxy Securities emphasized that the non-ferrous metals industry will face development opportunities. On one hand, key minerals such as copper and lithium will receive policy support to ensure resource security. On the other hand, driven by downstream demand in areas such as next-generation information technology and new energy vehicles, high-end new materials such as soft magnetic powder and titanium alloy materials will become key areas of focus, promoting China's transformation from a "major materials country" to a "strong materials country."

Overall, securities firms unanimously believe that the systematic layout of the 15th Five-Year Plan not only addresses current development challenges but also focuses on nurturing new productive forces for the long term, driving China's economy and society to steadily move forward on the path of high-quality development. The capital market will also welcome long-term structural opportunities alongside industrial upgrading.