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Qinghai’s 15th Five-Year Plan for Private Economy: What Foreign Founders Need to Know

Qinghai’s new private economy plan for 2026–2030 offers practical openings for foreign founders in green energy, agriculture, digital services, and trade. Here’s what the official notice says.

Qinghai’s 15th Five-Year Plan for the Private Economy: Key Points for Foreign Founders

Qinghai Province has published its 15th Five-Year Plan for the development of the private economy, covering the period through 2030. For foreign founders considering company registration or operations in China, the document signals where provincial authorities intend to direct private investment and what regulatory changes businesses can expect. Below is a practical summary of the plan’s main measures, based solely on the official notice.

Overall Goals and Targets

The plan states that by 2030, the private economy’s value-added output should account for approximately 42% of Qinghai’s GDP. It aims to strengthen legal protections, improve policy implementation and services, boost innovation capacity, and upgrade industrial capabilities. The province expects to see leading enterprises and industry backbone firms emerge, making the private sector a key support for modernizing the industrial system and a major engine for high-quality economic development.

The guiding principles include equal access to production factors, fair market competition, and equal legal protection for all forms of ownership. The plan also emphasizes building a “close and clean” government-business relationship and protecting the lawful rights of private economic organizations and their operators.

Agriculture and Green Transformation

The plan encourages private enterprises to modernize traditional livestock farming and develop large industry clusters for yak and Tibetan sheep products. It supports private investment in deep processing of agricultural and livestock products, and in new distribution models such as contract farming, e-commerce platforms, and community group buying. Private firms are also encouraged to increase R&D in agriculture and advance smart farming.

In industry, the plan calls on private companies to pursue green, low-carbon upgrades across the full life cycle in sectors such as salt lake chemicals, nonferrous metallurgy, and building materials. It supports private firms in creating green factories and applying for national green supply chain management status.

Energy and Infrastructure Opportunities

Private enterprises are encouraged to invest in and build energy infrastructure, including hydropower, solar thermal power, and diversified biomass utilization. The plan promotes large-scale wind and solar bases and supports private participation in grid-forming technological upgrades for wind and solar stations. It also guides private firms to research magnesium-based and aluminum-based hydrogen storage materials and engineering, and to join projects in silicon-based new materials, high-purity polysilicon, and green hydrogen production.

Specific industrial parks are named for private participation: the Xining Green Power and Intelligent Computing Integration Demonstration Park, the Haidong Zero-Carbon Computing Power Industrial Park, and the Hainan Prefecture Green Computing and Power Coordination Development Industrial Park.

High-Tech Manufacturing and Health

The plan encourages private involvement in plateau drone testing, inspection, and R&D production. It also points to modern plateau biomedicine and life health industries, including reformulation and secondary innovation of traditional medicines, and development of capsules, granules, and oral liquids. Private firms are supported in scaling traditional tablets and injections with existing advantages, clustering in medical device sectors such as patches, protecting and utilizing authentic medicinal materials, and participating in establishing Tibetan medicine standards.

In equipment manufacturing, the plan lists high-pressure hydrogen storage materials and containers, liquid hydrogen storage and transport, hydrogen pipelines, and integrated hydrogen production and application devices.

Digital Services and E-Commerce

Qinghai plans to bring in livestream e-commerce institutions and resources, using video traffic and livestream sales to expand marketing channels. It will connect with well-known domestic e-commerce and livestream platforms to design special livestream events, showcases, and dedicated stores for provincial private enterprises. Private firms are encouraged to enter higher-value technology services such as industrial design, shared technical services, inspection and testing, and quality certification.

The plan also supports private enterprises in developing branded, chain-based, and standardized lifestyle services to meet consumer upgrading needs, and to empower small and micro businesses in providing affordable, demand-oriented services.

Private Investment Promotion

The plan implements existing provincial measures to promote private investment. It calls for a project list encouraging private capital participation and regular promotion of quality investment projects. Private capital is encouraged to join new infrastructure such as the “six networks,” revitalize state-owned existing assets and old urban resources, and participate in “two major” and “two new” projects. The plan also supports private sector service integration into the Yarlung Zangbo downstream national strategic project, exploration of logistics bases or “transit warehouses,” and projects such as heavy truck battery swapping and prefabricated construction.

For key projects funded by private investment, the plan encourages using work-relief methods to expand employment. It also calls for reasonable qualification conditions in construction bidding to remove market access barriers for private capital in major projects.

Innovation and Digitalization

The province will continue its campaign to promote high-quality private economy development. It aims to cultivate private innovation entities and guide enterprises to build national and provincial science and technology platforms. Private firms are encouraged to undertake national and provincial science programs, conduct key technology research and commercialization in clean energy, salt lake chemicals, and new materials, and deepen enterprise-led industry-academia-research collaboration. State-owned enterprises, universities, and research institutes are encouraged to open their R&D platforms to private firms.

On digitalization, private enterprises are encouraged to participate in data centers, industrial internet investment, and application innovation. Platform companies are supported in cloud computing, blockchain, and processor projects. The plan promotes inclusive “cloud, data, and intelligence” services, cultivates “small lighthouse” digital transformation firms, and supports SME digitalization. Private firms are also encouraged to participate in standard-setting for emerging fields such as 3H plateau certification and to align with international standards.

Going Global and Trade

The plan calls for stronger service and guidance for private enterprises’ overseas investment cooperation, and for improving industry self-discipline and internal capacity of “going global” firms. It includes actions such as metrology services for SMEs, quality management system certification upgrades for small and micro enterprises, and quality certification credibility building. Private firms are encouraged to join public service projects in the cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones of Xining and Haidong.

Support is also directed at private participation in high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, organizing “Qinghai goods going global” trade events, opening green channels for local inspection of “dual-cold” products, expanding customs Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) cultivation and certification, and extending mutual recognition benefits to more small and medium private enterprises.

Legal Protections and Business Environment

The plan implements the PRC Law on Promoting the Private Economy and will promulgate and enforce the Qinghai Provincial Regulation on Promoting the Private Economy. It seeks to standardize enterprise-related law enforcement, correct unlawful or improper administrative acts that infringe on business rights, and prevent problems such as out-of-area enforcement, profit-driven enforcement, and arbitrary fees, fines, inspections, and seizures. New enforcement methods such as “scan code to enter enterprise” and “one comprehensive inspection” will be promoted. The plan also calls for a list of enterprise-related fees, regular monitoring, and flexible enforcement including “no penalty for first violation” and “no penalty for minor violations.”

On intellectual property, the plan aims to strengthen coordinated mechanisms across administrative enforcement, judicial protection, arbitration, mediation, industry self-discipline, and credit supervision. It includes public service matchmaking for IP, a “one-stop” IP service window, punitive damages for infringement, and a “fast track plus precision” tiered trial model for IP cases.

Government integrity is also addressed: the plan calls for continued clearing of overdue payments to private economic organizations, prevention and clearing mechanisms, timely payment guarantees, and a credit record system for defaults. For government bodies and public institutions that refuse or delay payment, funds may be raised by controlling project scale, cutting public expenses, and disposing of existing assets.

Legal services for enterprises will be promoted through online and offline campaigns, and law firms are encouraged to provide training and consulting to private firms.

Market Access and Fair Competition

The plan deepens implementation of the national unified market, strictly applying the “one national list” management model. It aims to improve market access convenience, optimize real-name verification rules, improve name registration and domicile registration, and make business registration, deregistration, relocation, and information changes efficient as “one thing.” It also seeks to break regional and industry hidden barriers.

Fair competition review mechanisms will be explored across regions and departments, with continued review and cleanup of policies that hinder unified markets. Antitrust and anti-unfair competition enforcement will continue in key areas, targeting low-quality low-price competition, false advertising, and “involutionary” competition. The plan also calls for collecting and screening leads on suspected monopolistic behavior and for publicizing fair competition policies.

Finally, the plan establishes a regular mechanism for “efficiently completing one thing,” cleans up unreasonable procedures such as circular and duplicate proofs, and promotes cross-departmental data sharing, including a “collect data once at most” reform.

Call to action: Foreign founders can contact ChinaMNC on WhatsApp / WeChat at +86 153 1898 8535 for help registering and operating a company in China.

This summary is based on information published by the relevant Chinese government website and is general information, not legal or tax advice.