In the third session of the 2025 webinar series “Staying in Dialogue with China”, which is dedicated to the theme of China's next and upcoming 15th Five-Year-Plan (2026-2030), Markus Herrmann Chen, Co-Founder and Managing Director, China Macro Group (CMG) will be talking to Zhang Dandan, Professor in Economics and Deputy Dean of the National School of Development (NSD) of Peking University.
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About the Webinar
Amid China’s continuously difficult post-Covid economic recovery as well as persisting structural issues such as the real estate market, industrial overcapacity and local government debt, this webinar deliberately takes the “long view”, providing a 10-year outlook and imagining China in 2035 as the next key modernization milestone – the mid-term goal announced as part of the 14th Five-Year-Plan in March 2021. This has been only the second time a regular Five-Year-Plan takes a planning horizon beyond the regular five years, the previous one being the 6th Five-Year-Plan (1981-1985) which proposed goals for the four ensuing Five-Year-Plan periods until the end of the century with the goal of quadrupling China’s GDP.
By 2035, and by accomplishing the goals of the 15th and 16th Five-Year-Plans, Chinese planners seek to achieve the “basic socialist modernization” (基本实现社会主义现代化), which in its core wants to – again – double China’s GDP, over the period from 2020 to 2035, which assumes a sustained year-on-year average real growth of 4.7% GDP, plus increase the share of China’s middle income group from 35% to 50% as some of its most important policy goals.
The following key questions will be explored:
- How to understand current economic difficulties when seen from a long-term planning and structural reform perspective?
- In hindsight, how «radical» were the decisions adopted by the CCP’s “Third Plenum” in July 2024?
- Which parts of the 14th Five-Year-Plan have been most effectively implemented when measured against the respective ambition level?
- How should foreign business take into account a policy planning goal for 2035?
- What are the key “make-or-break” reforms to achieve the 2035 goal such as China’s demographic transition?
- NDRC stresses that “changes unseen in a century” must be duly considered in long-term planning, what long-term scenario(s) do planners use?
- What are key policy shifts and changes to be expected by the upcoming 15th Five-Year-Plan?
- Referring to the 20 KPIs of the 14th Five-Year-Plan, what new set of KPIs will be the “right” ones to help guide development up to 2035?
- What role do governmental research versus societal inputs (e.g. the citizen issue collection, 政民互动问题征集) play in long-term planning?
Take the opportunity to listen in and ask your questions to Vice-Dean Zhang Dandan.
About the Webinar Series:
This webinar is part of the webinar series 'Staying in Dialogue with China'. The series will bring you six webinars with distinguished China-based experts, concentrated between February and December 2025.
'Staying in dialogue with China' is organized and hosted by China Macro Group (CMG), with Caixin Global as Anchor Partner, in cooperation with China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), Chinaforum Bayern, Swissmem, Danish-Chinese Business Forum (DCBF), SwissCham China, the Stein am Rhein Symposium (stars), Sweden-China Trade Council (SCTC), Norwegian Business Association China (NBA China), Danish Chamber of Commerce in China (DCCC), EuroCham Singapore and China-Britain Business Council.