Shanghai maps global financial hub plan to 2035, for world-class and socialist metropolis

Economic powerhouse has sights set on AI, advanced manufacturing and global financial services, reflecting a national 5-year plan’s first explicit financial-centre directive

Reading Time:3 minutes

A view of the Lujiazui financial district in Shanghai’s Pudong district is seen through an installation on October 27. The city has its sights set on financial and developmental advancements in the coming years. Photo: AFP

Published: 11:00am, 20 Jan 2026

Shanghai has laid out a full spectrum of goals on finance for the next five years and beyond, following an unequivocal push by China’s central leadership to grow the city into an international financial centre.

China’s largest city-level economy aims to evolve into a world-class, socialist metropolis by 2035, with an intensified focus on innovation and manufacturing, according to a local document released on Monday.

Shanghai unveiled its proposals for the drafting of its own 15th five-year plan, with multifaceted socio-economic goals covering the years 2026 to 2030. A full chapter in the document is dedicated to its financial centre development, throwing weight behind China’s imperative to put Shanghai on the global map of financial hubs.

This local directive came after leaders of the world’s second-largest economy in October, for the first time in several years, explicitly stated the mission to accelerate Shanghai’s international financial centre development, in proposals for the national five-year plan. National plans released in 2020 and 2015 did not contain such a goal for Shanghai.

Echoing Shanghai’s elevated roles in national planning, the city aims to achieve all-round development on top of becoming a global financial centre, with other priorities for the next half-decade including artificial intelligence, chips, shipping and advanced manufacturing.

“[Shanghai aims to] make decisive progress in its development into a socialist, modern international metropolis with global influence, while leading and driving Chinese-style modernisation on a national level,” the proposal document stated.