19th CPC Central Committee holds 5th plenary session in Beijing

The 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) started its fifth plenary session in Beijing on Monday.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a work report on behalf of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and explained a draft document of the CPC Central Committee's proposals for formulating the 14th Five-Year (2021-2025) Plan for Economic and Social Development and future targets for 2035.

The session will conclude on Thursday. 

Drawn up every five years since 1953, the five-year plan (FYP) is a major feature of China's governance system, setting growth targets and defining economic and social development policies to ensure national strategies keep pace with the times.

This year is the final year of China's 13th FYP period (2016-2020). At a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee last week, Xi said the implementation of the 13th FYP has been smooth, as the key strategic tasks and 165 major projects have all been carried out, the major indicators will be achieved as scheduled, and all targets and tasks set in the plan will be accomplished.

Over the last five years, the Chinese economy has grown close to 100 trillion yuan (about 15 trillion U.S. dollars) with a per capita GDP exceeding 10,000 U.S. dollars. The share of China's economy in the world hit 16.3 percent in 2019.

China now has the world's largest middle-income population and is set to end absolute poverty, which has haunted the nation for thousands of years.

The 14th FYP is of special significance as the plan period (2021-2025) will mark the first five years of China's new journey toward fully building a modern socialist country and marching toward the second centenary goal.

The CPC has set two centenary goals: By 2021, to celebrate the CPC's centenary, the goal is to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects; by 2049, the centenary of the People's Republic of China, the goal is to build a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious.

The 14 FYP is expected to lay out measures to nurture a new development pattern that takes the domestic market as the mainstay while letting domestic and foreign markets boost each other, connect China's two centenary goals and secure a good start in fully building a modern socialist country, according to last week's meeting.

Meanwhile, the fifth plenary session will discuss a 2035 blueprint – a midterm vision that will outline targets for the country to "basically" realize socialist modernization by 2035.

The CPC National Congress and the CPC Central Committee elected by it are the highest decision-making bodies of China's ruling party. Members of the 19th CPC Central Committee were elected in October 2017.

The fourth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee last year reviewed and adopted a decision on some major issues concerning how to uphold and improve the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and advance the modernization of China's system and capacity for governance.