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Vanessa Cai

China is set to introduce legislation to standardise the drafting of the country’s five-year plans for key economic and political goals.
The draft law on national development planning was submitted for its first reading to the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, China’s top legislative body, during its four-day session that began on Sunday, state news agency Xinhua said.
The legislation is meant to improve strategic guidance for national development plans and “advance the modernisation of the national governance system”, according to Xinhua.
The draft, one of 23 bills to be given their first reading this year, has not been released to the public.
It is expected to be adopted after a third reading, which could be in time for March, when China’s next five-year plans covering 2026-2030 will be released.
The State Council, China’s cabinet, decided at a meeting in February to submit the draft to the legislature for review. The meeting noted the need to improve “the scientific, democratic, law-based, and standardised formulation of national development plans”.
Preparation for the new law has been under way for years, first appearing in the NPC Standing Committee’s five-year legislative plan in 2013, before being included in the country’s five-year plans for national economic and social development.
In late 2023, the NPC Standing Committee defined the legislation as a priority project “ready for deliberation”.


In an article in Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily in August last year, Zheng Shanjie, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner, said the country needed to formalise best practice and instructions from the party’s leadership.
Zheng said “the rule of law should guide and ensure that national development plans better fulfil their strategic guiding role, thereby more effectively transforming institutional advantages into national governance capacity”.
He also noted that the legislative process should be accelerated.


According to Yang Yiyong, senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, agencies now rely on regulations to draft five-year plans.
A specific law would clearly define the rights and obligations of all parties involved and ensure “the continuity and stability” of the plans, he said in an article published in state media in February.
The legislation “could improve the quality and effectiveness of plans, thereby promoting the sustained and healthy development of the national economy and the overall progress of society”, Yang said.
“National development planning is an important tool for rational allocation of public resources and for enabling the market to play a decisive role in resource allocation.
“By improving the scientific, democratic, law-based, and standardised plan formulation, the strategic guiding role of development plans – in areas such as directing resource allocation, regulating market behaviour, and promoting high-quality development – can be better realised.”
The legislation could “strengthen authority of development plans” and also “better transform institutional advantages into governance effectiveness”, Yang said.


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China mulls law on standards for national 5-year plans

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Draft legislation goes before the NPC, a decade after first being mooted

Draft legislation goes before the NPC, a decade after first being mooted