Politburo Meeting Outlines H2 Macro Policy; NDRC Details Measures and 800 Billion Yuan New Tools

In the first half of 2026, China's economy showed a trend of new momentum and improved structure. In terms of scale, GDP grew 4.7% year on year, continuing to rank among the top major economies, with an increment of RMB 3.6 trillion. In terms of trend, major economic indicators rebounded in May and June, with improvements on both supply and demand sides. In terms of quality and efficiency, innovation-driven development further showed results, with new drivers such as high-end manufacturing, the intelligent economy, and modern services contributing over 40% to economic growth.

On domestic demand, investment structure continued to optimize. Investment in high-tech industries grew 4.6% year on year, of which investment in information services grew 15.5%. Investment in intellectual property products nationwide grew 9.4%, accounting for 13.8% of total investment. In consumption, retail sales of wearable smart devices such as smart glasses grew by more than 100%, and retail sales of high-efficiency home appliances grew by more than 30%. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is currently working with relevant departments to formulate an implementation plan for the strategy of expanding domestic demand (2026-2030). Next steps will combine improving people's wellbeing with boosting consumption, and combine investment in physical assets with investment in human capital to stimulate endogenous investment momentum.

Planning and building the 'six networks' is a powerful lever for stabilizing investment, expanding domestic demand, and adding new momentum. At present, most major individual projects planned to start this year have already broken ground, a large number of projects are accelerating construction, and another large batch has been completed and put into operation. In the first half of the year, water network construction attracted over RMB 10.8 billion in private capital, up 85.8% year on year. According to relevant institutions' estimates, during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, computing network construction will add RMB 4 trillion in direct investment. Given that computing construction is mainly enterprise investment, this will create huge space for private investment. The NDRC will focus on three aspects: integrated layout and multi-network coordination, efficient utilization and solving practical problems, and removing bottlenecks and improving governance, and will promptly refine and implement specific plans and strengthen funding and factor guarantees.

The construction of a unified national market has entered a critical stage of deepening. Next, we will accelerate the establishment of rules and regulations, focusing on a combination of 'one regulation, three lists, and three systems'; optimize connectivity, remove bottlenecks in the circulation of goods and services, improve factor circulation efficiency, and reduce circulation costs; make breakthroughs in key areas, striving to achieve first breakthroughs in areas that affect every household and the development of millions of business entities; and closely monitor problem rectification, concentrating on eliminating a number of chronic problems.

In the development of artificial intelligence, we will balance development and safety, and focus on three key links: innovation, application, and ecosystem. On one hand, we will accelerate independent innovation, focusing on frontier directions such as basic theories of large models, training and inference efficiency, multimodal intelligence, and intelligent agents, strengthen basic research and technological innovation, and accelerate data sharing and the construction of AI corpora. On the other hand, we will highlight application traction, accelerate the layout and construction of national AI application pilot bases, and promote the full-chain collaborative innovation and efficient adaptation of 'model, chip, cloud, and application'. At the same time, we will accelerate the legislative process of the AI law, strengthen risk monitoring and prevention, and actively respond to the impact of AI on economic operations, employment, and income distribution.

In terms of prices, in the first half of 2026, the overall price level continued to recover, which had a positive effect on increasing corporate profits, fiscal revenue, and residents' employment and income. Looking ahead to the second half of the year, the accelerated development of emerging industries such as AI, further strengthening of production capacity and output regulation, gradual optimization of market competition order, and continued release of service consumption demand will provide good support for price recovery.

The Politburo meeting held on July 30 made comprehensive arrangements for the second half of the year's economic work, clarifying that macro policy should be more forceful and effective, fully leverage the effectiveness of existing policies, promptly plan and introduce practical incremental policies, and increase counter-cyclical adjustment. The NDRC will promote more forceful and effective policies, enhance the consistency of macro policy orientation; expand domestic demand while improving people's wellbeing, strengthen the domestic large market; accelerate the cultivation of new momentum, continuously enhance development momentum and vitality; and strengthen safety capacity building to further enhance economic resilience. In expanding effective investment, we will coordinate the construction of the 'two major projects', seize the peak construction season in the third quarter, accelerate the deployment and use of RMB 800 billion in new policy-based financial instruments, accelerate the issuance and use of special bonds, and promote the implementation of 109 major projects proposed in the 15th Five-Year Plan outline.