Chinese regions prioritize high-quality growth, tech innovation, and business reforms in 2025

(ECNS) -- Several Chinese provinces, including Anhui, Guangdong, Shandong, Liaoning, and Hubei, along with Shanghai convened post-Chinese New Year meetings to outline their 2025 development plans, focusing on high-quality development, technological innovation, and improving the business environment.

Both Guangdong and Shandong provinces, China’s two economic powerhouses, will focus on high-quality development.

Guangdong hosted its annual High-quality Development Conference on Wednesday in its capital city Guangzhou. The meeting involved building a modern industrial system and leveraging Guangdong's robust industrial base and technological prowess to drive modernization and sustainable growth.

Shandong commenced with a conference, aiming to promote high-quality development through reform and innovation, with focus on 92 reform tasks to be implemented in 2025.

Anhui, which has transformed from a traditionally agricultural province to an emerging industrial powerhouse and a base for advanced manufacturing, convened a meeting Thursday themed on developing new productive forces via technological innovation.

Guangdong emphasized the need to leverage technological innovation to spur economic growth, while Shandong underscored the importance of establishing a mechanism that integrates technological innovation with industrial innovation.

Additionally, some provinces and municipalities proposed to further optimize their business environments. Among them, Shanghai has issued 58 measures in its latest action plan to create a better business environment. It has been deliberating on the direction for such optimization for the upcoming year annually since 2018.

Over the past seven years, it has released 1,101 measures to refine its business environment. This year, "enhancing the corporate experience" has become a focal point in Shanghai's efforts to build a conducive business environment.

In the latest meeting held in Liaoning, it stressed the need to continuously create a first-class business environment, strengthen the rule of law, and optimize public services, so that all types of business entities here can have a sense of gain, achievement and belonging.

At the same time, it is essential to introduce a series of reform initiatives and experiential outcomes with distinctive Liaoning characteristics. It also noted the importance of the optimization and expansion of state-owned capital and enterprises, and would support private enterprises in transforming their development models.