On Tuesday, March 4, the Third Session of the 14th National People's Congress kicked off with the Premier delivering his work report on behalf of the State Council. This work report provides a review of the government’s work in 2024 and reveals the major tasks of the government’s work in 2025. Knowing the overall direction of the government for this year is increasingly essential for companies operating in an ever more complex business environment in China. Our members received the full report in their inbox yesterday. This is a shortened version.
Overall picture
Three directions can be crystalized out of this year’s work report:
- Stability: an even stronger emphasis on stabilization than last year (2025: “stabilize” appeared 26 times, 2024 times 21). Setting the GDP for three consecutive years at “around 5%” follows this direction.
- Efficiency: To achieve economic stability, more efficiency is needed, for example through more targeted investments and more supervision in government administration.
- Confidence: Authorities signal they are still confident in the future economic development and meanwhile there seems to be a strong need to boost business confidence.
The overarching direction remains unchanged: a consistent focus on high quality across all sectors.
Moderately enhanced fiscal policy
This year, an increased issuance of bonds has been announced, highlighting the pro-active fiscal policy approach set forth at last year's Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC). The trend in monetary policy, shifting from “prudent” in 2024 to “appropriately accommodative monetary policy” in 2025 reaffirms the policy direction from the 2024 Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC) as well.
Top priority: Increasing domestic demand
Increasing domestic demand is now the top priority and moved up from its third position in 2024, which follows the direction of the CEWC. Interestingly, boosting consumption and increasing efficient investment are linked together.
Strategic emerging industries take center stage
China continues to count on tech innovation for modernizing its industrial system and as catalyst for economic growth. New is that the major focus is to better use sci-tech innovation in practice, for example utilization of large-scale AI models. To improve long-term efficiency in innovation, the education of high-tech-focused talents is highlighted as the foundation (again). This year, more target groups like young professionals and industrial technical workers are explicitly mentioned. Moreover, the 2025 report explicitly calls on private companies to participate in sci-tech innovation projects.
Foreign investment: It's all about stability
For FDI, the emphasis lies on stabilizing foreign investment. For market access, the focus is on expanding and implementing the previously announced market access in telecommunications and healthcare. More market access in education and culture was again announced.
Ensuring equal treatment of foreign and domestic companies in the areas of resource access and qualification approval are newly introduced, while cross-border data transfer has been removed, suggesting the issue is considered sufficiently addressed.
Business environment: It's all about efficiency
The report focuses on more efficient management, administration and streamlining of government activities in several areas. For example, the rights and interests of private companies and entrepreneurs should be protected effectively, such as the problem of overdue payments and inspections. Also, the local government hidden debts issue should be tackled and replaced effectively.
