Observation | What will Shanghai do next year? The plenary session of the Municipal Party Committee has “marked key points” for economic and social development
As the year-end approaches, it is a critical period for summing up the year’s work and planning for next year. As Shanghai steps into 2025, what are its plans?
On December 29th, the 6th Plenary Session of the 12th Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China was held. The meeting comprehensively implemented the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee, deeply studied and implemented General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech on Shanghai and his instructions on Shanghai work, as well as implemented the spirit of the Central Economic Work Conference.
At the same meeting, a comprehensive summary of the work in 2024 was conducted, and the tasks for 2025 were fully deployed. Shanghai Municipal Party Secretary Chen Jining made a report on behalf of the Municipal Standing Committee, delivering a speech on implementing the spirit of the Central Economic Work Conference and preparing for next year’s work. Shanghai Deputy Mayor Gong Zheng部署了全市明年经济社会发展工作。
Reporters from The Paper noticed that Shanghai municipal committee members brainstormed about the city’s economic and social development, discussing issues and suggesting solutions. Among them, topics such as accelerating the construction of the “five centers,” cultivating new productive forces, and building a people-oriented city have been repeatedly discussed and received attention.
Looking ahead to 2025, Shanghai will be “headstrong and leap forward,” focusing on high-quality development as its primary task and building the “five centers” as its important mission. The city will further deepen reforms and open up to promote sustained economic recovery and improvement, deepen the construction of a people-oriented city, and continuously improve people’s living standards.
The “five centers” collaborate for development
Shanghai has been working hard in 2024, with a solid foundation and increasing momentum. At the end of the year, good news continued to emerge.
On December 22nd, Shanghai Port successfully handled its 50 millionth container, becoming the world’s first port to exceed this milestone, leading the global rankings for the 15th consecutive year. On December 26th and 27th, the Shanghai-Suzhou-Lake高铁and urban rail transit lines started running, further improving Shanghai’s comprehensive transportation system and supporting the development of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration.
Speaking at the meeting, Shanghai municipal committee member and deputy secretary general of Shanghai municipal government, director of the Development and Reform Committee Gu Jun said that under the strong leadership of the municipal party committee, the city has worked together to maintain a good momentum of high-quality economic and social development. He summarized the work in 2024 with “four better.” This year, Shanghai has better undertaken the mission of serving the overall national situation and enhancing the city’s level, whether it is enhancing the function of the “five centers” or strengthening the “four functions”, especially the development of three leading industries. Shanghai has achieved sustained progress in fulfilling important strategic tasks assigned by the country.
As an important part of Shanghai’s “five center” construction, the international shipping center has faced external uncertainties and外向型经济has been significantly affected in recent years. The achievement of 50 million TEUs is particularly remarkable. In fact, Shanghai has been strengthening the联动发展in the construction of the “five centers”, focusing on their overall effect, platform effect, amplification effect, and radiation effect.
For example, Shanghai Port has promoted the growth of international transfer volume through innovation in functions such as multimodal transport, coastal transportation, and transfer consolidation, which has also brought growth in shipping insurance. The construction of the trade center also requires the financial center to provide efficient trade financing services, exchange hedging tools, and transaction payment methods to leverage its overall effect.
As the largest economic center in China, Shanghai’s economic trends are closely watched. In the first three quarters of 2024, Shanghai achieved a regional GDP of 3438.92 billion yuan, an increase of 4.7% over last year, maintaining a good momentum of high-quality development. During the deliberation, some municipal committee members mentioned that Shanghai focuses on policy measures that synergize to achieve results, with notable achievements in real estate policies.
In May 2024, Shanghai issued the “Nine Policies for Real Estate Development in Shanghai,” promoting real estate to stabilize and improve first. After studying the economic situation at a meeting on September 26th and introducing targeted policy measures that support growth in response to market demand recovery measures nationwide underpinned by policy easing measures nationwide after September 29th last week along with Shanghai’s launch of key housing market measures that have significantly eased lending restrictions to help spur demand at last week’s market peak point along
