# China Unveils Action Plan for 'New Quality Productive Forces,' With Tech Innovation at the Core

> China's Communist Party and State Council have jointly issued guidelines spelling out 19 measures across five priority areas to cultivate new quality productive forces, placing technological innovation at the center alongside a broader push on AI Plus and supporting policy.

- Source: Times of China (Times of China)
- Canonical URL: https://timesofchina.cn.com/en/article/china-new-quality-productive-forces-guidelines-2026
- Chinese edition: https://timesofchina.cn.com/article/china-new-quality-productive-forces-guidelines-2026
- Author: 中国时报编辑部
- Section: Top News
- Published: 2026-10-12T06:00:00+08:00
- Updated: 2026-10-12T06:00:00+08:00
- Tags: 新质生产力, 科技创新, 人工智能+, 研发投入, 产业政策

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China has issued a new set of guidelines for cultivating what officials call new quality productive forces, laying out 19 measures across five priority areas, with technological innovation named as the top task.

## Innovation takes the lead

Jointly released by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, the guidelines call for strengthening original and disruptive innovation and speeding up the path from research results to real world application. Corporate research spending is expected to account for more than 77 percent of the country's total research and development investment in 2025, according to official figures, and the guidelines call for broadening tax breaks on corporate R&D spending. Li Chao, chief economist at Zheshang Securities, said the deduction rate for qualifying tech companies' R&D expenses could eventually rise from the current 100 percent to 120 percent, giving firms a stronger incentive to spend more on research.

## From government led to business led

The guidelines also call for a corporate R&D reserve system and for letting qualifying company led projects be folded into national level science and technology programs. Fu Yifu, a researcher at Jiangsu Su Merchants Bank, said the shift signals that the allocation of innovation resources is moving away from being mainly government led toward a model driven more by markets and enterprises, calling it a fairly significant change.

## Upgrading old industries, growing new ones

Officials want digital, smart and green technologies deployed more deeply across traditional sectors, alongside faster growth of emerging pillar industries, backed by new mechanisms meant to keep investment in those industries sustainable over the long run.

## Expanding "AI Plus" while watching for risk

Artificial intelligence features prominently in the plan, which calls for pushing the AI Plus initiative further into more industries and sectors, while building out monitoring and emergency response systems meant to catch problems as the technology spreads quickly.

## Matching policy with money and talent

On the financing and talent side, the guidelines promote patient capital for early stage technology ventures, smoother paths to public listings for qualifying tech companies, and lighter restrictions on researchers moving between universities, research institutes and companies, while also encouraging foreign venture capital firms to expand their presence in China. Kilian Aviles, executive vice-president and head of Asia-Pacific operations at the German testing and certification firm Dekra, has said foreign firms remain upbeat about growing their business in the country.

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Originally published by Times of China. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://timesofchina.cn.com/en/article/china-new-quality-productive-forces-guidelines-2026.