In 2026, the blueprint for China's business work has been completed. The key points are the three core keywords of consumption, foreign trade and opening up. This indicates a clear direction for economic policies in the new year.
Deeply implement special actions to boost consumption
Among the eight key tasks, the first one listed in 2026 is to boost consumption, which shows that from the central to local governments, a series of specific policies will be implemented and will directly affect residents' shopping carts. The implementation of this specific policy is not limited to the issuance of consumer coupons, but is more related to the systematic optimization of the entire consumption environment.
Building the brand "Buy in China" is a brand-new way of expressing it. Its purpose is to make China a shopping destination favored by consumers around the world. Specific measures include optimizing the trade-in policy for consumer goods, making the renewal of large-scale commodities such as home appliances and cars more affordable, and at the same time accelerating the cultivation of consumption in cultural tourism, sports, health and other service industries, thereby unleashing the potential of domestic demand.
Promote innovative development of trade
In the field of foreign trade, the brand "Export to China" echoes "Buy in China". This situation requires China's exports to shift from just pursuing scale to focusing on quality, technology and value-added services. Optimizing the structure of trade in goods indicates that the proportion of exports of high value-added products will further increase.
There are three major directions for innovation and development, namely service trade, digital trade and green trade, to encourage the export of services such as design software culture, to fully support emerging digital trade formats such as cross-border e-commerce, and to develop green product trade that complies with environmental protection standards. All of these will become new engines for foreign trade growth.
Optimize the use of foreign investment structure
The key point of attracting foreign investment has changed from "quantity" to emphasizing "quality" and "environment". An extremely critical aspect is to expand the opening up of the service industry within a certain order. In related fields such as finance, telecommunications, and medical care, it is very likely to encounter more relaxed market access. Achieving relaxed access to the areas covered by this open expansion level will inevitably require changes and revisions to matching laws and regulations to ensure that the opening process can be in a peaceful, stable and orderly state.
Improving the level of investment promotion means more precise services, just like providing "one-stop" solutions for key foreign investment projects. The key aspect of improving the foreign investment service guarantee system is to protect the legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors so that the long-term expectations of foreign-invested enterprises can be stabilized and confident.
Improve foreign investment management
For foreign investment, emphasis is placed on the two aspects of “orderly advancement” and risk prevention. Guiding the cross-border layout of the industrial supply chain in a reasonable and orderly manner is based on the dual considerations of economic security and efficiency. Enterprises' overseas deployment needs to be more consistent with the overall strategic choices made by the country, so they should avoid blindly embarking on repeated investments.
Focusing on deepening economic and trade cooperation along the “One Belt, One Road” initiative as a specific starting point, and developing “Silk Road e-commerce” is also a manifestation of the specific starting point. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision of overseas projects and establish an effective risk warning system and emergency response mechanism to ensure the safety of overseas assets and personnel.
Promote high-level institutional openness
Corresponding to international high-standard economic and trade rules is an inherent requirement when China deepens its opening up. This indicates that more institutional reforms will be carried out in areas such as intellectual property protection, environmental standards, and digital economy rules, and the free trade pilot zone improvement strategy will be comprehensively and in-depth implemented.
The construction of Hainan Free Trade Port will further accelerate and move forward. The trade also has the level of liberalization and facilitation at the investment level. It is hoped that in 2026, it will achieve practical progress and breakthroughs, and then turn into a resource highland that attracts various factors from around the world.
Build a solid economic security barrier
Pay equal attention to development and security, and improve export control and security review mechanisms. This is a safety valve for the export of key technologies and core data. This is not closing the door, but to better safeguard national security during opening up.
To improve the trade risk prevention and control mechanism, the focus is to deal with fluctuations in the external market and uncertainties such as supply chain disruptions. Maintenance arises from the resilience and security of the supply chain. This requirement means maintaining necessary backup and substitution capabilities in domestic and international layouts.
After reading these six key directions for China's business work in 2026, which measure do you think can be implemented and have the most direct and obvious impact on the daily lives of ordinary people? Welcome to share your views in the comment area.
