On December 13, China's National Development and Reform Work Conference was held in Beijing, where Zheng Zhajie, Director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), delivered the work report. This meeting, held in the context of the Central Political Bureau and the Central Economic Work Conference, serves both as a concrete implementation of the discussions and as a plan for the key tasks and priorities of the NDRC for 2025. Given the NDRC's responsibilities and control over national development resources, local governments and development departments will likely meticulously review and consider the key tasks outlined at this meeting.

Researchers at ANBOUND believe that it is important to clarify that the National Development and Reform Conference is an "executive meeting", not an "innovative meeting". The essence of the meeting is more about conveying and implementing the central government's economic development direction, and clarifying the specific tasks of the national development and reform system in this process.

The NDRC has long played a key role in China's economic governance, serving as a crucial agency for macroeconomic regulation. Its responsibilities extend beyond policy implementation and it acts as an essential tool for driving the country's overall economic development. However, within the new political system, the Central Committee's leadership is paramount. Even the State Council's main tasks focus on executing the central government's directives and realizing the blueprint set by the central leadership, not to mention the NDRC, which is a subsystem of it. Therefore, local governments will need to understand this fundamental positioning when carrying out their work.

The key tasks outlined at this conference focus on seven major areas: macroeconomic policy, domestic demand, medium- and long-term planning, deepening reforms, building a modern industrial system, ensuring people's livelihoods, and regional development and carbon neutrality. Each task is a detailed breakdown of the objectives set by the Central Economic Work Conference, rather than the introduction of new policy directions. This focus on execution reflects the adjustments in the national governance system. The central government sets the development direction through top-level design, while the NDRC is responsible for translating and implementing these decisions at the operational level.

From the content released, it is evident that the meeting did not introduce any major innovative policies. Instead, it focused on how to translate the established goals into concrete action plans. This shift reflects both the current need for policy stability and the external challenges to China's internal governance capacity.

First, the conference emphasized the importance of policy research and economic analysis, planning and promoting a package of incremental policies, and implementing a more proactive and effective macroeconomic policy. It also stressed strengthening the consistency of macroeconomic policy orientation, as well as improving economic communication and expectation management. In recent years, due to dramatic changes both in China itself and in the international economic environments, the issue of insufficient policy coordination has frequently emerged, leading to some policy goals not being fully achieved. In this context, the NDRC has been entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring policy consistency, with its core task being to avoid policy conflicts. This is done by enhancing overall coordination and creating a unified policy approach. The meeting's focus on policy research and economic analysis also highlights a shift in the role of the NDRC, that it is no longer the source of policy innovation but instead analyzes economic issues and proposes targeted implementation plans. While this technical shift improves the precision of policy implementation and reduces the risk of policy mistakes, it also means that the NDRC's initiative in shaping policy discourse has been weakened, making its function more akin to that of a "policy conveyor".

Second, "expanding domestic demand in all aspects" is another core task of this meting. This called for expanding effective investment, encouraging the introduction of private capital into major projects, and implementing special actions to boost consumption. Such measures are a concrete implementation of the "stabilizing growth" goal outlined at the Central Economic Work Conference. The NDRC, through resource coordination and optimizing fund allocation, ensures that the demand expansion in key areas is completed on schedule. The meeting also proposed using tools such as central government budget investment, special government bonds, and local government special bonds to drive more tangible work output.

Third, in terms of boosting consumption, the meeting outlined the direction of enhancing residents' consumption capacity by optimizing the policy environment and expanding consumption scenarios. This focus on the consumption sector is also a concrete breakdown of central policies, with stability as the core objective. It reflects the basic role of the NDRC, which is to ensure the smooth achievement of the central government's established goals through execution-oriented actions.

Fourth, regarding the implementation of the five-year plan, the meeting presented key tasks for 2025, including achieving the goals of the 14th Five-Year Plan and starting the preparation of the 15th Five-Year Plan. It specifically highlighted the importance of new-type urbanization, which not only responds directly to central policies but also provides clear guidance to local governments. According to the meeting's content, urbanization work in 2025 will focus on a "people-centered" approach, promoting the urban integration of rural migrants and fostering coordinated development across large, medium, and small cities.

Fifth, the conference emphasized the implementation of further comprehensive and in-depth reform measures. The key areas listed by the meeting include: (1) focusing on key sectors and critical areas for targeted reform; (2) prioritizing the construction of a unified national market and revising the market access negative list; (3) strengthening efforts to promote the development of the private economy and advancing the prompt introduction of the law on private sector promotion. The common feature of these initiatives is the clear and actionable implementation paths.

The conference also mentioned the need to promote the construction of a modern industrial system, stabilize employment, increase residents' income, improve the social security system, and implement regional development strategies along with the goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Whether it is the coordinated development between regions or the enhancement of energy and resource security, these tasks reflect the stability of policy execution rather than breakthroughs in direction. The NDRC's responsibility is to strengthen regional cooperation and optimize energy allocation to ensure that the ecological and regional development goals set by the central government are achieved.

From the content released by official media, the characteristic of this meeting is not innovation. It does not stand out in terms of systematically promoting development work at the national level. Moreover, the conference was not a one that focused on strategic thinking and planning. Its main theme consists of specific "key tasks" to be advanced and concrete areas of development. Given the relatively severe internal economic situation China is facing, along with the possibly even more challenging external development environment, especially considering the significant reduction in development resources compared to the past, we believe that even if the tasks already outlined are to be successfully implemented in 2025, it will not be an easy task. Expanding domestic demand, stabilizing growth, stabilizing employment, and stabilizing prices, while strengthening baseline thinking and risk prevention and resolution, will likely be the core tasks of economic work in 2025.

Final analysis conclusion:

Overall, the core characteristic of China's recent National Development and Reform Work Conference is its "executive" nature rather than "innovative" focus. The main task of the meeting was to clarify the specific implementation paths for the goals set by the Central Economic Work Conference. This executive focus reflects an adjustment in the role of the NDRC and indicates that its influence in the future will be more evident in specific operational matters rather than in strategic innovation. Local governments, in addressing the economic tasks for 2025, will have to pay close attention to the NDRC's guiding role in policy implementation. By accurately understanding its functional positioning, they can find breakthroughs in the complex internal and external environment and provide strong support for achieving economic growth goals.

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Yang Xite is a Research Fellow at ANBOUND, an independent think tank.