GDP growth
Average annual growth over 2026–2030; 3.9% in 2025.
Guangdong Province · 2026–2030
Guangdong’s 15th Five-Year Plan
广东省国民经济和社会发展第十五个五年规划纲要
A plan to keep China’s largest provincial economy manufacturing-led, deepen the Greater Bay Area’s cross-border systems, and spread opportunity from the Pearl River Delta to counties, coasts and ecological regions.
- GDP growth
- ≈5%
- Digital core share
- 18%
- Ocean GDP
- ¥2.8tn
- Urban–rural income ratio
- 2.05
The plan in plain English
One province, three connected transformations
Guangdong’s strategy combines three tasks: upgrade a vast manufacturing economy, turn the Greater Bay Area into a working cross-border system, and narrow the gap between the Pearl River Delta and the rest of the province. AI, ports and advanced industry matter, but so do county economies, permanent-resident services, urban renewal, coastal resilience and the mechanisms that move projects and resources across administrative borders.
Official scoreboard
Twenty-two indicators define the 2030 test
These are the plan’s official numbered indicators. Growth rates are annual averages unless stated otherwise; “pp” means percentage points and “tce” means tonnes of standard-coal equivalent.
Labour productivity
Average annual growth in output per employed person; 3.8% in 2025.
R&D expenditure
Average annual growth of total research and development spending; 4.9% in 2025.
High-value patents
Valid high-value invention patents per 10,000 people; 32.15 in 2025.
Digital core industries
Share of provincial GDP; the latest baseline shown in the plan is 16.5%.
Urban unemployment
Ceiling for the surveyed urban unemployment rate.
Resident income
Per-capita disposable income should grow broadly in step with economic output.
Average schooling
Average years of education for the working-age population; 11.54 in 2025.
Medical workforce
Practising physicians and registered nurses per 1,000 people respectively.
Nursing beds
Share of nursing-type beds in elder-care institutions; 75% in 2025.
Under-three enrolment
Five-year cumulative increase in the childcare enrolment rate.
Life expectancy
Up from more than 80 years in 2025.
County and town residents
Share of permanent residents living in county seats and towns; about 47% in 2025.
Urban–rural income ratio
Target ratio of urban to rural per-capita disposable income; 2.27 in 2025.
Ocean GDP
Gross ocean product, compared with ¥2.04tn in 2025.
Carbon intensity
Reduction in carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP follows the national binding target.
Non-fossil energy
Share of non-fossil energy in total consumption; 28.7% at the latest baseline.
PM2.5
The province will implement the national target; the 2025 baseline was 20.7 μg/m³.
Good-quality water bodies
The province will implement the national target; 94.6% met the standard in 2025.
Forest coverage
The province will implement the national target; 53.4% in 2025.
Grain capacity
2030 production-capacity target, measured as the previous five-year average.
Energy production capacity
Production capacity measured in tonnes of standard-coal equivalent; 128.46m in 2025.
Greater Bay Area
Integration is built through infrastructure, rules and daily life
Two corridors, two nodes
The Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong and Guangzhou–Zhuhai–Macao innovation corridors connect with Hetao and Hengqin. Guangming, Songshan Lake and Nansha science cities supply research infrastructure.
Hard connectivity
Cross-boundary rail, an orbital railway around the Pearl River estuary, bridges, ports, airports, energy, water and computing capacity are planned as one metropolitan network.
Soft connectivity
The plan extends professional-qualification recognition, customs cooperation, cross-border finance, secure data flows, “Bay Area standards” and commercial-dispute mechanisms.
Everyday integration
Education, healthcare, social security, public services, youth employment and multi-stop tourism are used to make cross-border integration visible in daily life.
Four major platforms
Hengqin supports Macao diversification; Qianhai links Hong Kong services; Nansha combines shipping, finance and technology; Hetao specialises in cross-border research and pilot production.
International gateway
Guangzhou and Shenzhen airports, Hong Kong’s Dongguan logistics centre, combined-port customs systems and global service platforms tie the Bay Area to international markets.
Provincial geography
The Pearl River Delta leads, but the delivery map covers the whole province
The plan’s spatial logic combines metropolitan integration, coastal growth poles, ecological regions and transfer platforms. These seven labels are an editorial guide to the named places and mechanisms in the outline.
Guangzhou and Shenzhen
The two cores remain the principal engines: Guangzhou as a central world city and regional service hub; Shenzhen as a global technology and economic centre.
Pearl River east and west
The “Golden Inner Bay” and Shenzhen–Zhongshan integration are intended to reduce the estuary divide through transport, industrial coordination and shared services.
Metropolitan circles
Guangzhou and Shenzhen circles are upgraded while the west-bank, Shantou–Chaozhou–Jieyang and Zhanjiang–Maoming areas pursue closer integration.
Eastern Guangdong
Shantou anchors an eastern growth pole, with the Shantou–Chaozhou–Jieyang cluster using ports, specialised manufacturing and overseas-Chinese links.
Western Guangdong
Zhanjiang acts as a provincial sub-centre; western coastal cities combine port industry, energy, agriculture, marine resources and stronger Bay Area connections.
Northern Guangdong
Ecological development zones focus on green industry, stronger county seats and public services, with benefit-sharing for conservation and resource provision.
Cross-regional platforms
Industrial-transfer parks, “reverse enclaves” and paired assistance allow Pearl River Delta cities, counties and public institutions to share projects, costs and benefits.
Industrial portfolio
Advanced manufacturing is the backbone, with four layers of renewal
The groupings below organise sectors named across the plan. They are an editorial reading aid rather than four official statistical categories.
Renew established strengths
- Electronics and information
- Chemicals and petrochemicals
- Machinery and equipment
- Home appliances and light industry
- Food and textiles
- Construction materials, metals, mining and ships
Scale emerging industries
- New energy and new materials
- Intelligent connected vehicles
- Intelligent robots
- Biopharma and medical devices
- Aerospace and integrated circuits
- Low-altitude economy and biomanufacturing
Position for future industries
- Sixth-generation communications
- Embodied intelligence
- Cell and gene therapy
- Brain science and brain–computer interfaces
- Hydrogen and advanced nuclear energy
- Deep-sea and quantum technologies
Add productive services
- Industrial design and software
- Testing, standards and certification
- Technology finance and intellectual property
- Modern logistics and supply-chain services
- Digital, green and services trade
- Professional and legal services
Artificial intelligence
From compute and data to factories, roads and public services
Compute
Coordinate general, intelligent and supercomputing capacity with energy supply; make computing services usable by firms and research institutions.
Data
Build trusted data spaces and high-quality sector datasets, expand “Open Guangdong”, and improve authorised use and secure circulation.
Models, chips and cloud
Strengthen the model–chip–cloud–application chain, support foundation and industry models, and develop intelligent agents and terminals.
Factories and transport
The project list includes digital transformation for more than 10,000 manufacturers, smart factories, about 2,000 km of smart expressways and five smart ports.
Public services
Deploy AI in education, healthcare, elder care, environmental management, justice, emergency response and city operations.
Governance
Combine scenario opening with standards, ethics review, security assessment, monitoring and risk response for reliable deployment.
Infrastructure by 2030
Six capacities show the physical scale of the strategy
Total rail network by 2030, including more than 4,000 km of high-speed rail.
Provincial road network, including more than 13,000 km of expressways.
Annual passenger capacity; cargo and mail capacity reaches 7.15m tonnes.
Annual cargo capacity, with 90m TEU of container capacity.
Installed generating capacity; non-fossil sources exceed 55% of electric capacity.
New or renewed underground urban pipelines, plus more than 1,000 km of utility tunnels.
Counties, towns and neighbourhoods
Regional balance is treated as an economic and service-delivery problem
County industry
The “Hundreds of Counties, Thousands of Towns and Myriad Villages” programme uses local manufacturing clusters, industrial transfer, agricultural processing, marine ranching and tourism to expand county economies.
County seats and major towns
Public services and infrastructure follow population change; stronger county seats and selected central towns provide jobs and services for wider rural areas.
Village development
Modern agriculture, collective assets, rural construction and basic services are linked to local income rather than treated only as environmental improvement.
Income and mobility
The urban–rural income ratio target falls to 2.05, while fiscal transfers and public services increasingly follow permanent residents rather than household registration alone.
Urban renewal
The plan calls for more than 2,000 old-neighbourhood projects and at least 200 urban-village renewal projects, integrated with housing, safety and public-space upgrades.
Complete communities
Neighbourhood services, parks, accessible facilities, care provision and digital governance form the everyday layer of the urban strategy.
Ocean, energy and ecology
The coast is a growth frontier and a climate-risk system
Marine economy
Ocean GDP reaches ¥2.8tn, with ports, offshore energy, marine equipment, fisheries, biomedicine and coastal tourism developed as a connected system.
Coastal geography
Six bay areas—Shantou, Honghai, Daya, Pearl River Estuary, Guanghai and Hailing—plus the Leizhou Peninsula organise coastal development.
Energy transition
Non-fossil energy rises to 33% of consumption through offshore wind, nuclear power, solar, storage, stronger grids and demand management.
Water and flood safety
River basins, reservoirs, transfers, coastal defences and drainage are coordinated; large-scale systems should serve more than 92% of the rural population.
Circular economy
Industrial parks, bulk solid waste and household waste enter wider reuse systems; annual bulk solid-waste utilisation is planned at about 350m tonnes.
Green public realm
The plan includes 10,000 km of trails, 800 km of green ecological belts and 500 provincial “happy rivers and lakes”.
People and public services
Growth is paired with access across a mobile, ageing population
Education
The higher-education gross enrolment rate is planned at 65%, alongside stronger basic education, vocational education, universities and cross-region resource sharing.
Healthcare
Medical capacity, public health, primary care, traditional Chinese medicine and digital health support life expectancy above 81.5 years.
Children and families
The plan expands childcare, maternal and child health, child-friendly cities and support across birth, parenting and education.
Ageing
Nursing-type elder-care beds rise to 80%, with home, community and institutional services and stronger medical–care integration.
Housing
Public rental, affordable rental and shared-ownership supply are combined with reuse of suitable commercial housing, urban-village renewal and better-quality homes.
Equal access
Guangdong’s 81 basic public-service items will be updated, with schooling, health insurance and social assistance increasingly supplied at the place of permanent residence.
Planning and delivery
How the outline becomes budgets, projects and annual work
A binding hierarchy
The provincial development plan leads spatial, sector, regional and city/county plans; conflicts in goals, layouts, policies and projects must be reconciled.
Different treatment of targets
Binding public-service, environmental and security targets receive assigned responsibilities. Expected economic and industrial targets rely on policy, market and legal conditions.
Annual translation
Indicators and tasks enter annual development plans, with year-to-year balancing and coordination across provincial, municipal, county and town governments.
109 project packages
Six groups cover new productive forces, infrastructure, urban–rural integration, livelihoods, green transition and security, classified by delivery readiness.
Resources follow projects
Project selection, budgets, finance, land, sea-use approvals and administrative coordination are tied to the plan’s priorities.
Evaluation and oversight
Dynamic monitoring, mid-term and final evaluation, third-party assessment, people’s-congress reporting, audit and public scrutiny are built into implementation.
Primary sources
Approved outline, official interpretation and briefing
The notice records approval by the provincial people’s congress and publication under Yue Fu [2026] No. 24.
Read the official notice ↗The provincial press conference explains the industrial, Bay Area, county and AI priorities behind the outline.
Read the briefing transcript ↗A Chinese-language overview of the document’s central choices and public-service priorities.
Read the official commentary ↗This English page is editorial guidance. The officially approved Chinese text remains authoritative.
Download the Chinese PDF ↓