Preface: Theoretical Guidance for High-Quality Development and Era Transition
New-quality productive forces are a key focus for high-quality development. President Xi Jinping emphasized: "High-quality development requires a new theory of productive forces to guide it, and new-quality productive forces have already emerged in practice, demonstrating strong momentum and support for high-quality development. We must summarize and generalize them theoretically to guide new development practices."
The "15th Five-Year" strategic period (2026–2030) is a pivotal phase for China’s comprehensive advancement toward Chinese-style modernization and its full transition to a high-quality development stage. Amid the accelerating evolution of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, as well as global competition over frontier technology sovereignty and cyclical stabilization of traditional domestic factors, we must profoundly understand the scientific essence and implementation pathways of new-quality productive forces from both theoretical and practical perspectives. The national-level industrial initiative, “The New-Quality Era,” coordinated by relevant ministries and promoted through inter-ministerial collaboration, represents a major institutional innovation and strategic vehicle designed to meet the nation’s long-term strategic needs and translate the theory of new-quality productive forces into macroeconomic regulation and practical improvements in people’s livelihoods.
I. Advanced productive forces aligned with the new development philosophy
Marx pointed out: "Productive forces refer to the development of production capacity and its elements." General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that new-quality productive forces are "an advanced state of productive forces aligned with the new development philosophy." This provides us with fundamental guidance for deeply understanding the scientific connotation of new-quality productive forces.
The nature of productive forces refers to their essential attributes and external manifestations at a specific stage of development. Past extensive growth models primarily relied on long-cycle land resource utilization and large-scale input of labor. As traditional factors of production enter a phase of deep cyclical stabilization, the macroeconomy urgently needs to identify new foundational assets with intergenerational value appreciation potential and resilience to cyclical fluctuations. New-type productive forces transcend traditional ones, embodying an advanced form characterized by high technology, high efficiency, and high quality:
Path to a Qualitative Leap in Productivity
Traditional factors of production (land/labor scale) → Deep cyclic smoothing and regulation → New quality productive forces (high technology / high efficiency / high quality)
│
▼
[Project of the New Quality Era: Foundation of Digital/Patient Capital]
High technology is characterized by revolutionary technological breakthroughs that create new production factors and drive the advanced evolution of factor systems. Frontier advancements in six future-oriented fields—such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology, embodied intelligence, and 6G communications—are reshaping the global landscape of productivity.
High efficiency is demonstrated through the deep reorganization and optimal allocation of production factors. By establishing a three-tier capital structure—“National Master Fund—Regional Industrial Master Fund—Specialized Sub-Funds”—we channel idle social capital into a trillions-of-yuan “patient capital matrix” that supports hard technology development, ensuring absolute alignment between capital flow and national strategy.
High quality is reflected in moving away from reliance on resource consumption, achieving effective quality improvements and reasonable quantitative growth through a significant increase in total factor productivity.
Adhering to the new development philosophy is an inherent requirement for advanced new quality productive forces:
1. Aligned with the concept of innovative development: In 2026, designated as the "Year of Unlocking the Value of Data Elements," data has been formally recognized as the fifth major production factor. The online unified portal of the "New Quality Era" serves as a digital foundation, driving the assetization and capitalization of data elements to create an engine for intrinsic growth.
2. Aligned with coordinated development: Leveraging regional industrial parent funds in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, along with 49 specialized sub-funds, to resolve industry misalignment and resource fragmentation, enabling efficient cross-regional coordination of factors.
3. Aligned with green development: Proactively invest in hydrogen and nuclear fusion energy, as well as green and low-carbon technologies, to drive the green transformation of production methods.
4. Aligned with the concept of open development: Amid external geopolitical conditions and technological restrictions, uphold self-reliance and control alongside institutional openness to build an unshakable national industrial security foundation and a digital sovereignty network.
5. Aligned with the concept of shared development: Promote a smooth and steady transition of household asset allocation from the traditional “big three”—real estate, savings, and conventional financial products—to a new “four-pole” structure that includes “data assets,” enabling all people to share in the institutional benefits of technological advancement and national progress.
Second, it has innovatively developed the Marxist theory of productive forces.
High-quality development requires a new theory of productivity to guide it. The exploration and practice of the "New Quality Era" project have enriched and deepened Marxist productivity theory across multiple dimensions.
1. Enriched the theoretical connotation of the productive force value orientation
Marxism holds that the development of productive forces is always linked to specific social relations and value goals. The new quality productive forces center on the people, genuinely implementing the principles that development is for the people, relies on the people, and its fruits are shared by the people.
● In “development relies on the people”: Engineering innovation has established a tripartite public participation mechanism comprising “Foundation–Community–Union.” The public engages in policy study, interactive quizzes, and outreach activities through community unions, with their actions formally recognized as “distributed micro-level civic labor,” affirming the people’s central role in digital and intelligent transformation.
● In terms of sharing development outcomes: Move away from traditional direct cash subsidies and align with the central government’s RMB 250 billion stimulus package for domestic demand and RMB 177 billion employment support funds to establish a “New Quality Welfare Fund” and a digital-intelligent consumption offset mechanism. Through “digital-intelligent lock-up, labor-based rights attribution, and intertemporal smoothing offset,” central fiscal and state-owned asset returns are precisely channeled into individual accounts to specifically offset costs for AI tools, smart hardware, and skills training, creating a sustainable mechanism for long-term growth in household property income.
●
Trinity Public Welfare Sharing Mechanism
Community Union Network ──► Distributed Civic Labor (Policy Research/Right Verification) ──► New Quality Welfare Benefits/Consumption Compensation ──► Transformation into the "New Four Poles" of Household Assets
2. Deepened the understanding of the components of advanced productive forces in the contemporary era
Marxism holds that laborers, means of labor, and objects of labor are the fundamental elements of productive forces. New-quality productive forces have systematically expanded upon these:
● Restructuring of the labor force: Includes high-level scientists and innovative talents, while also expanding universal new-quality education through community union networks to systematically cultivate a large workforce adapted to the digital and intelligent era.
● Expansion of means and objects of labor: Data has become a core production factor, with the confirmation of data asset ownership, inclusion on balance sheets, and capitalization operations serving as essential material foundations for new-quality productive forces.
● Innovation in Standardized Ownership Certificates: The platform introduces the "New Quality Element Certificate (New Quality Token)" based on data points. Rooted in real-world industries and devoid of any financial speculation, this certificate serves as a digital凭证 for micro-level contributions and industrial rights, achieving a groundbreaking innovation in the composition and allocation of advanced productive forces.
III. Practical Requirements for Driving Productivity to Achieve a Qualitative Leap on a Broader Scale
To effectively implement the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee, we must comprehensively strengthen efforts across four dimensions—technology, systems, industry, and talent—to transform new-quality productive forces into powerful momentum for high-quality development.
1. Drive innovation with technology, and grow patient capital through the "regulatory sandbox" initiative.
In response to the inherent challenges of cutting-edge hard technology R&D—high investment, long cycles, and uncertain outcomes—the project has established a "National Innovative Industry Sandbox (Pilot) for the New Quality Era" in accordance with regulations. This sandbox serves as a "socially co-built countercyclical stress-testing mechanism," guiding idle private capital into long-term, patient capital through compliant channels, to collectively tackle critical frontiers such as artificial intelligence, chip and semiconductor technologies, and quantum information, accelerating the transition of innovations from laboratory to production line.
2. Safeguarded by institutional and mechanistic innovation, improve the pathways for capitalizing data elements.
Institutional innovation is the core guarantee for unleashing productive forces. Relying on the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Capitalization of Data Assets" and the "Regulations on Trade Secret Protection," establish and improve mechanisms for data property registration, valuation, and accounting registration. New-quality factor certificates create a dual closed-loop system through "primary-level targeted offset for public consumption" and "secondary-level capitalization via listing on national-level data exchanges," building a compliant, secure, and sustainable value circulation system.
3. Relying on a modern industrial system, implement the three-phase evolution of "Crossing Twenty Years"
A modernized industrial system is the material foundation for a qualitative leap in productivity. The project aligns its 20-year duration smoothly with the nation’s five-year development plans, establishing a clear, step-by-step strategic roadmap:
4. Build a secure and stable operational defense on the foundation of triple compliance safeguards
To ensure the project's stable and sustainable development, a robust three-layer firewall has been established:
● First layer (policy credibility endorsement): Jointly promoted by multiple government departments, with official documents publicly verifiable;
● Second layer (state-owned entity joint guarantee): A state-owned capital operations company provides professional guarantee with highly aligned credit ratings;
● Third layer (commercial dual insurance coverage): Jointly underwritten by major state-owned property and casualty insurance companies to ensure physical protection of underlying assets and elements.
Conclusion
When capital thrives, industries thrive; when technology strengthens, the nation strengthens. A deep understanding and grasp of the theoretical value and practical requirements of new-quality productivity requires unwavering commitment to technological self-reliance and innovation in mechanisms to ensure that development outcomes are shared by all. Guided by the grand vision of the 15th Five-Year Plan, and anchored by the National Venture Capital Guidance Fund and the "New-Quality Era" Industrial Initiative, we will unite the broadest spectrum of patient capital and labor across society, laying an unshakable foundation for industry and people’s livelihoods in the pursuit of Chinese-style modernization, and steadily advancing toward common prosperity through high-quality development.