From October 20th to 23rd, 2025, the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) convened its fourth plenary session in Beijing. The most significant outcome of the meeting is the deliberation and adoption of the Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, which provides a top-level design and strategic plan for China’s economic and social development from 2026 to 2030, and marks another overall mobilization and deployment for the advancement of Chinese modernization.
Achieving socialist modernization in China is a historical process of gradual and ongoing development. The objective of basically realizing socialist modernization by 2035 will be accomplished through the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan, the 15th Five-Year Plan and the 16th Five-Year Plan. This year marks the concluding year of the 14th Five-Year Plan.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), China’s total economic output has consecutively exceeded the thresholds of RMB 110 trillion, RMB 120 trillion, and RMB 130 trillion. Its per capita GDP has exceeded US$13,000 for two consecutive years. Its contribution to world economic growth has been maintained at an average of around 30% annually. In the first three quarters of this year, China’s total GDP has already surpassed RMB 100 trillion, and the total for the year is expected to reach RMB 140 trillion.
As ironclad friends and all-weather strategic cooperative partners, we are willing to let China’s high-standard opening up benefit Pakistan first.
Building upon the solid foundation and good start established during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the period covered by the 15th Five-Year Plan will be critical in this process as we work to reinforce the foundations and push ahead on all fronts toward basically achieving socialist modernization by 2035. It will thus serve as a key link between the past and the future. To this end, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping personally served as the leader of the drafting group for the documents of the fourth plenary session, playing a decisive role in drafting the Recommendations.
Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era constitutes the fundamental principle and core spirit permeating the Recommendations. We owe all these historic achievements in advancing China’s socialist modernization in the new era to the CPC Central Committee with Secretary General Xi Jinping at its core, which has been at the helm charting the course, and to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, which has provided sound guidance to advance our cause. Currently, we are thoroughly studying and implementing the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech and the guiding principles of the fourth plenary session, and striving vigorously to break new ground in advancing Chinese modernization. In this process, we stand ready to deepen exchanges and cooperation for shared development and progress with our ironclad friend Pakistan.
First, we stand ready to strengthen the exchange of governance experience with Pakistan and act as partners in advancing national modernization.
Both China and Pakistan are developing countries, shouldering the mission of boosting economic development and improving people’s wellbeing, and there is ample scope for mutual learning from each other’s experience and practices. For China, the scientific formulation and successive implementation of Five-Year Plans constitute a crucial experience of the CPC in governing the country and a key political advantage of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Sound assessment of the situation is a critical prerequisite for scientific decision-making. We believe that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, China’s development environment will face profound and intricate changes: relations between major countries have an important bearing on the international landscape, the dynamics of which will in turn exert a profound impact on the domestic development of every country. China is in a period of development where strategic opportunities exist alongside risks and challenges, and uncertainties and unforeseen factors are rising. Nevertheless, changes engender opportunities. We must therefore seize this time window, gain strategic initiative amid fierce international competition, and strive for major breakthroughs in strategic tasks pivotal to the overall advancement of Chinese modernization.
To this end, the Recommendations put forward the following requirements: We must continue to pursue economic development as our central task, with high-quality development as our main focus, reform and innovation as the fundamental driving force, meeting the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life as our fundamental goal, and full and rigorous Party self-governance as the fundamental underpinning for all our efforts. We must promote higher-quality economic growth while achieving an appropriate increase in economic output and make solid headway in promoting well-rounded personal development and common prosperity for all.
We are pleased to note that Pakistan is also advancing its “Uraan Pakistan” Five-Year Plan. The two sides share a high degree of convergence on such concepts as putting the people first, comprehensively deepening reform, and ensuring both development and security. It presents broad prospects for strengthening governance experience exchanges and joining hands to advance the modernization of both countries. In particular, as major agricultural nations, addressing issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and rural residents is of paramount importance to both China and Pakistan. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China secured a decisive victory in the tough battle against poverty, lifting 98.99 million rural poor people out of poverty and eradicating absolute poverty entirely from Chinese soil.
To consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation, China established a five-year transition period to synergize efforts toward the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas. Meanwhile, we deeply recognize that the modernization of agriculture and rural areas represents our most critical shortcoming that needs to be addressed as a priority. To this end, the Recommendations emphasize that addressing issues related to agriculture, rural areas, and rural residents is the top priority of the Party’s work. We need to promote integrated urban-rural development, and secure faster progress in building up China’s strength in agriculture. We should make coordinated efforts to establish regular mechanisms for preventing rural residents from lapsing or relapsing into poverty, maintain the overall stability of fiscal and financial support policies.
We will scientifically and precisely identify the rural residents in need of assistance, help those with working capacity achieve prosperity through industry and employment support, and ensure the basic livelihood of those without working capacity through social assistance. Given that Pakistan has made agriculture and poverty alleviation key priorities in its governance agenda, we stand ready to share our experience in targeted poverty alleviation with Pakistan while deepening cooperation in agriculture and poverty reduction.
For example: We will expand contract farming cooperation with demand orientation and market principles, facilitating more exports of high-quality Pakistani agricultural products to China; We will launch a “Sweet Initiative” in major date palm-producing regions, by donating agricultural machinery and providing relevant training. This initiative is expected to directly benefit 13,000 farming households; We will implement the project of “Strengthening Maternal and Neonatal Health in 100 Health Facilities across Balochistan”, by distributing over 80,000 pieces of medical equipment. The project is expected to benefit more than 6 million local people.
Second, we stand ready to deepen high-level practical cooperation with Pakistan and be a practitioner in promoting universally beneficial development.
In the context that peace and development remain the underlying trend of our times, development is always the master key to solving all problems for developing countries including China and Pakistan. In this connection, the Recommendations have laid out a comprehensive plan for China’s economic and social development in the next five years, highlighting two keywords, namely “faster” and “high-standard,” such as “working faster to boost China’s strength in manufacturing,” “moving faster to foster a new pattern of development,” “achieving high-standard self-reliance and strength in science and technology,” and “promoting high-standard opening up.”
Pakistan is making efforts to grow its manufacturing industries and IT sectors. The strategic plan China is advancing in the 15th Five-Year Plan period, especially the specific measures for developing the real economy, will not only bring about new development in China, but also create new opportunities for China-Pakistan cooperation and deliver new benefits to the people of both countries, particularly the people of Pakistan. Last month, our two countries issued the Action Plan to Foster an Even Closer China-Pakistan Community with a Shared Future in the New Era (2025-2029), which identifies 63 measures in 7 areas for the next 5 years, including building an upgraded version 2.0 of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, promoting cooperation on agriculture, industry and mining, and deepening cooperation on IT, AI and big data. These areas are highly consistent with the priorities in China’s real economy development.
We are ready to work with Pakistan to deliver on these measures and take our practical cooperation to a new high. For example: on industrial park cooperation, the Haier-Ruba Special Economic Zone reaped an output value of US$400 million last year, paid tax of US$120 million and created 6,000 jobs. Haier plans to invest another US$400 million in a new home appliance industrial park, which will have an annual production capacity of about ten million units and create over 10,000 jobs. The Chinese textile company Challenge Group plans to invest US$150 million in a new textile industrial park, which will bring about an annual export volume of US$400 million and create about 20,000 jobs. We are also happy to learn that on October 25th, the Balakot Hydropower Project, undertaken by Chinese company, reached a milestone and successfully achieved river closure. The project has already created over 2,000 local jobs and is expected to provide green electricity to about 1.8 million people each year when completed. In a word, we are ready to keep working with Pakistan to consolidate, deepen and expand our cooperation, support Pakistan in pursuing greater development and growing its national strength, and help meet the people’s aspiration for a better life.
Third, we stand ready to work with Pakistan in upholding the multilateral trading system and becoming practitioners in advancing economic globalization.
At present, as unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise, and global industrial and supply chains are under strain, a certain major country is wielding the tariff stick and imposing sanctions and pressure at will, severely undermining the international economic and trade order. Confronted with the backlash against economic globalization, China has always been pursuing an opening up strategy of mutual benefit and win-win outcomes, and has continuously offered new opportunities for global development with the new achievements of Chinese modernization.
As ironclad friends and all-weather strategic cooperative partners, we are willing to let China’s high-standard opening up benefit Pakistan first. China has been Pakistan’s largest trading partner and largest source of investment for many consecutive years. In the first three quarters of this year, Pakistan’s export of marine products, rice and sesame to China rose year-on-year by 23 percent, 63 percent and 87 percent respectively, illustrating the vitality of trade cooperation between our two countries. Going forward, we will work with Pakistan to upgrade the China-Pakistan Free Trade Agreement to enable all sectors in Pakistan to benefit more from China’s huge market. At the same time, we will work with other like-minded countries to practice true multilateralism, uphold the global system of free trade and the stability of industrial and supply chains, promote universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, and jointly create a bright future of prosperity and development.
A vast journey unfolds, a blueprint extends forward. Under the strong leadership of the CPC, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is now on an irreversible historical course. 2026 marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Pakistan, presenting a significant milestone and fresh opportunities for the all-weather strategic cooperation between our two countries. We will work with Pakistan to fully implement the important consensus reached by our leaders, further deepen high-level political mutual trust, high-level practical cooperation, high-level security cooperation and high-level international coordination, so as to set an example for building a community with a shared future with China’s neighboring countries, and contribute to the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.
The writer is Ambassador of People’s Republic of China to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.