Boosting domestic demand key priority

China will prioritize demand to build a strong domestic market next year while pressing ahead with reforms to bolster momentum and vitality for high-quality development and continued opening-up to promote win-win cooperation across multiple sectors, it was stated at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on Monday.

The meeting, aimed at analyzing and studying economic work for 2026, was held ahead of the Central Economic Work Conference, underscoring the importance of developing new quality productive forces, and called for innovation-driven growth, accelerating the cultivation and expansion of new drivers.

Djasur Djumaev, founder and CEO of Uzbekistan's leading digital platform Uzum, said it is positive that China is prioritizing stronger domestic demand because robust internal demand makes the economy more resilient and less dependent on external markets, supports growth driven by real consumer spending, stimulates the development of services and innovation, creates new jobs and ensures a more balanced, stable and long-term model of economic development.

"We are highly optimistic about China's economic outlook," Djumaev told China Daily.

In August, Chinese tech giant Tencent, together with London-based VR Capital, invested nearly $70 million in Uzum. The cooperation between the Central Asian company and its Chinese partner demonstrates that China offers significant investment potential, and the global community sees major opportunities for further expanding cooperation with Chinese investors.

"More than 20 million people — half of Uzbekistan's population — use the Uzum platform every month. The platform provides Chinese businesses with direct access to a rapidly growing market, while giving Uzbek consumers greater choice, better prices and convenient digital services," he said.

As China remains Uzbekistan's leading trading partner, Djumaev said Chinese goods are represented across nearly all key categories on the Uzum Market platform — from electronics and household products to tools and hardware — and demand for these items continues to grow.

Boosting domestic demand in China will support stable economic growth, thereby expanding cooperation between China and Central Asia and creating additional opportunities for businesses in the region, Djumaev said.

Foreign investment is a key component of high-standard opening-up. The Central Economic Work Conference in 2024 called for expanding high-standard opening-up, while the 2025 Government Work Report further stated that, regardless of changes in the external environment, China will unswervingly pursue the policy, steadily expand institutional opening and broaden autonomous and unilateral opening in an orderly fashion, using the policy to drive reform and development.

The Ministry of Commerce said China's consumer market remains the world's second-largest, with retail sales of consumer goods growing 5.5 percent annually on the average over the past four years.

The China Foreign Investment Statistical Bulletin 2025 reported that 59,000 foreign-invested enterprises were newly established in 2024, up 9.9 percent year-on-year. Actual use of foreign capital reached $116.24 billion last year, keeping China as the largest recipient of foreign investment among developing economies.

Binnopharm Group, one of Russia's largest medicine manufacturers, strengthened coordination with Chinese partners in 2023 and obtained a license for logistics operations.

The company's subsidiary in Shanghai has also integrated into China's financial system through instruments such as bank acceptance bills and recently obtained its first corporate loan worth 3 million yuan at an interest rate of 5 percent.

Under China's investor-friendly policies encouraging foreign investment, Binnopharm will continue to expand its business and launch logistics services in China starting in late December 2025, said Rustem Muratov, CEO of Binnopharm Group. Muratov hailed the recent steps by the Chinese government — such as encouraging foreign investment and the visa-free policy for Russians — as part of its push for high-standard opening-up.

"The visa-free policy streamlined the logistics of business travel, which is especially important considering the significant number of contacts and projects requiring continuous in-person presence," Muratov said, adding that regular visits enable business partners not only to conduct negotiations, but also to establish trust-based relationships and take part in key industry events.

Foreign experts noted that the potential of China's market for foreign companies is enormous, and the country has been a global leader in artificial intelligence and electric vehicles, with ambitious plans for the future.

Sergey Suverov, chief investment strategist at Moscow-based Aricapital Asset Management, said the capacity of a country with a 1.4 billion population and a growing middle-income group is vast, and China has built an excellent logistical and industrial base, while the market itself is expanding rapidly.

"If people once said 'made in China', now they say 'created in China'," Suverov said, adding that the world is watching China, which is actively developing its creative industries, including through partnerships with foreign firms.

For Irina Kokushkina, a scholar at the department of world economy at Saint Petersburg State University, innovation-driven growth and green development are the areas she watches most closely when looking at China's outlook over the next five years. Innovation has become China's primary engine for sustained growth, with its ranking in the Global Innovation Index rising from 34th in 2012 to 10th in 2025.