With a population of over 1.4 billion, the world's largest middle-income group, and more than 190 million business entities, the Chinese market is enormous.
More than 500 million express parcels are in transit, approximately 34 billion yuan worth of physical goods are transacted online, and more than 120 billion yuan worth of goods are traded internationally... This is the robust pulse of the Chinese market every day.
The market is synonymous with opportunity, and unique market resources are a huge advantage for my country.
In the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, my country faces a more complex and severe external environment, while its internal development is at a critical stage of transformation and upgrading. Continuously consolidating and enhancing the advantages of its super-large market, making good use of this "trump card," and forming a strong support for building a new development pattern is the inevitable choice for China's economy to move steadily forward and achieve high-quality development amidst multiple risks and challenges.
Innovation opportunities for market expansion
On January 5th, amidst sub-zero temperatures, the 42nd China Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival opened at Harbin Ice and Snow World.
It's not just Harbin; many places across my country are leveraging new scenarios, experiences, and creative ideas to expand "ice and snow+" tourism and unleash its consumption potential. The "China Ice and Snow Tourism Development Report (2026)" released by the China Tourism Academy (Data Center of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism) points out that my country's ice and snow tourism is entering a new stage of sustained prosperity. Comprehensive calculations indicate that during the winter of 2025-2026, the number of ice and snow tourism visitors in my country is expected to reach 360 million, with revenue potentially reaching 450 billion yuan.
The massive market has fostered a wider range of scenarios, where innovation opportunities and development vitality are hidden.
"Thanks to the vast and deep market in my country, new technologies and products can quickly find initial users, complete the validation process from 0 to 1, and leverage the scale and scope effects of the local market to achieve continuous innovation from 1 to N. Based on massive amounts of data and application scenarios, my country has also formed unique commercial advantages in fields such as artificial intelligence, 5G, and big data applications," said Guo Liyan, Deputy Director of the Institute of Economics at the National Development and Reform Commission's Macroeconomic Research Institute. She added that in the Chinese market, a broad and multi-tiered competitive landscape has formed, encompassing industry leaders, SMEs, and individual entrepreneurs. Various enterprises, relying on digital platforms, have significantly improved their responsiveness to personalized and high-quality demands, further activating the potential of the consumer market and integrating into a continuously spiraling process of upgrading and improving from the demand side to the supply side.
Scenarios are also becoming new policy support tools.
Focusing on five aspects—creating a batch of new application scenarios in new fields and tracks, building a batch of new business application scenarios for industrial transformation and upgrading, launching a batch of application scenarios in various industries, innovating comprehensive application scenarios for social governance services, and enriching application scenarios in the field of people's livelihood—my country has for the first time made a systematic deployment for the cultivation and opening up of scenarios at the national level, clarifying 22 key areas, and striving to build a multi-dimensional scenario ecosystem so that technological innovation can have a place to take root and market demand can be released.
In practice, by adapting to local conditions, we can promote the development of a path of "technological breakthrough - scenario verification - industrial application - system upgrade", using new demand to drive new supply, new supply to stimulate new consumption, and new technologies to connect with new industries and open up new tracks. As a result, the innovation, radiation and driving force of the Chinese market will become stronger and stronger.
Development opportunities for deepening reform
For a long time, the State Grid and China Southern Power Grid have formed relatively complete electricity markets within their respective operating areas. Although the "hard" infrastructure for cross-grid power transmission has long been in place, the "soft" mechanisms for cross-grid transactions still need to catch up. When cross-grid mutual assistance and protection are carried out, a new set of rules must be learned for each province involved.
In July 2025, the "Scheme for Regularized Power Trading Mechanism Across Power Grid Operating Areas" was officially approved, breaking down the "invisible wall" between the two major power grids. Under the mechanism, during the peak summer season of 2025, over 2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity were transmitted from Guangdong, Guangxi, and Yunnan to Shanghai, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Fujian around the clock through the Fujian-Guangdong power grid interconnection project and related channels, achieving mutual assistance and protection of the power system nationwide.
The cross-grid "flash delivery" of one kilowatt-hour of electricity demonstrates the practical results of deepening the construction of a unified national market.
A large market is not inherently equivalent to a strong market. Only by continuously deepening reforms, breaking down market barriers, and smoothing the economic cycle can we solidify the foundation of my country's large market and accumulate the momentum to transform it into a strong one.
We must fight a decisive battle, but also be prepared for a protracted one. Currently, the construction of my country's unified market is deepening from "breaking down barriers" to "improving rules." Some hidden barriers remain lurking within institutional rules, local policies, and market behaviors. We must focus on key and difficult areas, and build a unified national market by "establishing new systems while breaking them down."
On the one hand, we should establish favorable institutional rules and regulations. For example, we should study and formulate regulations for the construction of a unified national market and policies and measures to promote the healthy development of investment attraction, and promote the improvement of fiscal and taxation systems, statistical accounting systems, and performance evaluation systems that are conducive to market unification.
On the other hand, we must remove unfavorable obstacles and hindrances. This includes continuing to address issues in areas such as the irregular return of tax and financial subsidies and bidding processes; widely soliciting clues about problems hindering the construction of a unified national market; and so on.
The Central Economic Work Conference, to be held at the end of 2025, has already made relevant arrangements. The crucial next step is to ensure their thorough and meticulous implementation in practice. Li Chao, Deputy Director of the Policy Research Office of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), recently revealed that the NDRC will promote the issuance of a list of items that hinder the construction of a unified national market, further regulating the economic promotion behavior of local governments.
Aiming at the goal of "deepening the construction of a unified national market and continuously demonstrating the advantages of a super-large market" during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, a series of reform measures will be introduced successively. The process of comprehensively promoting my country's market from large to strong will also be a process of constantly generating new development opportunities.
Win-win opportunities for further opening up
China's advantage of its super-large market has never been isolated from the world economy, but rather deeply integrated with it.
Significant progress has been made in the high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative; China has become a major trading partner of more than 150 countries and regions; the number of open ports has continued to grow, and the negative list has been continuously streamlined; China ranks among the world's top in attracting foreign investment and making outbound investments... In numerous foreign media reports, an open China has brought more opportunities to the world.
In 2026, adhering to opening up to the outside world and promoting win-win cooperation in multiple fields will remain an important focus of economic work.
From steadily advancing institutional opening-up and orderly expanding the autonomous opening-up of the service sector, to deepening the reform of the foreign investment promotion system and mechanism and promoting the signing of more regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements, new measures for high-level opening-up will accelerate the transformation of the advantages of a super-large market into global resource allocation capabilities, and make China an indispensable profit center and innovation partner for companies from all countries.
From "same line, same standard, same quality" in the physical market to the deep integration of rules, standards and business environment, new measures to promote the integrated development of domestic and foreign trade will transform the potential of the super-large market into real industrial competitiveness and connect the domestic and international markets more efficiently.
"By expanding imports to bring in high-quality goods and services from around the world, and through the 'Foreign Trade Excellence Tour of China' campaign, we can also promote the resale of globally competitive Chinese foreign trade products back to the domestic market, continuously enriching and optimizing the supply of the domestic market. This will activate the vast domestic consumer market with high-quality supply, and attract overseas consumers to travel and shop in China with a richer and more vibrant domestic market, thus achieving coordinated development between the foreign trade market and the domestic trade market, and between Chinese manufacturing and Chinese consumption," said Li Jun, director of the Institute of International Service Trade at the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute.
The first holiday after the Hainan Free Trade Port officially opened for business in 2026 was New Year's Day. Hainan's tourism market saw a 25.2% year-on-year increase in tourist arrivals and a 28.9% year-on-year increase in total tourism spending. Notably, in addition to leisure travel, many more people came to explore the market and seek development opportunities.
This is just the beginning. With the clustering of industries and talent, the Hainan Free Trade Port will better support Chinese enterprises in "going global" and better assist foreign enterprises in entering the Chinese market and even expanding into the global market.
This is just another chapter in the story of win-win cooperation. Investing in China is investing in the future. A China that actively embraces the world with an open attitude is injecting continuous momentum into global economic openness and cooperation. (Economic Daily reporter Niu Jin)
