Expanding Development Space by Meeting the People’s Livelihood Needs

At the opening ceremony of a special seminar on studying and implementing the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC [1]1 The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC was held in July 2025, focusing on further deepening reform and advancing Chinese modernization. for major leading officials at the provincial and ministerial level, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed: “Economic development and social development complement each other and must advance in coordination. Improving the people’s livelihood must be taken as the focus of promoting social development, and the quality of the people’s life must be steadily raised while developing the economy.” [2]2 This is a paraphrase of Xi Jinping’s remarks at the opening ceremony of the seminar, held in early 2026. Ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood in the course of development is a major task of Chinese-path modernization, and many works in Volume I of *Selected Economic Works of Xi Jinping* provide profound explanations of this. For example, “How to Understand and Act on the New Normal” points out: “We must continue to improve the people’s livelihood on the basis of economic development, especially by raising the quantity and quality of basic public services such as education and medical care, and by advancing educational equity”; “Solidly Promoting Common Prosperity” points out: “Only by promoting common prosperity, raising the income of urban and rural residents, and enhancing human capital can we raise total factor productivity and consolidate the dynamic foundation for high-quality development”; and so on. These important expositions profoundly reveal the dialectical relationship between promoting economic development and ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood. Promoting economic development provides solid support and stable guarantees for ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood, while ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood anchors the value direction for promoting economic development and expands its potential space; the two are interdependent and mutually reinforcing.

习近平总书记在省部级主要领导干部学习贯彻党的二十届四中全会精神专题研讨班开班式上强调：“经济发展和社会发展相辅相成，必须协调并进。要把改善民生作为促进社会发展的重点，在发展经济的同时稳步提高人民生活品质。”在发展中保障和改善民生是中国式现代化的重大任务，《习近平经济文选》第一卷中的多篇著作都对此作出深刻阐释。比如，《对新常态怎么看，新常态怎么干》指出：“要在经济发展基础上持续改善民生，特别是要提高教育、医疗等基本公共服务数量和质量，推进教育公平”；《扎实推动共同富裕》指出：“只有促进共同富裕，提高城乡居民收入，提升人力资本，才能提高全要素生产率，夯实高质量发展的动力基础”；等等。这些重要论述深刻揭示了推动经济发展与保障和改善民生的辩证关系。推动经济发展为保障和改善民生提供坚实支撑、稳定保障，保障和改善民生为推动经济发展锚定价值方向、拓展潜力空间，二者相互依存、相互促进。

The *Proposal* of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC [3]3 The *Proposal* refers to the Central Committee’s proposal for formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030), adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session. takes adhering to the people-first principle as a principle that must be followed for economic and social development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period [4]4 The 15th Five-Year Plan covers the years 2026–2030., and puts forward “focusing on ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood in the course of development, and expanding development space by meeting the people’s livelihood needs.” The Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of last year [5]5 The Central Economic Work Conference was held in December 2025. clarified the key tasks for this year’s economic work, including “adhering to putting the people’s livelihood first, and striving to do more practical things for the masses.” To implement the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee, we must take benefiting the people as the fundamental value orientation, persist in ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood in the course of development, and open up new realms of high-quality development by ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood.

党的二十届四中全会《建议》把坚持人民至上作为“十五五”时期经济社会发展必须遵循的一项原则，提出“注重在发展中保障和改善民生，在满足民生需求中拓展发展空间”。去年底召开的中央经济工作会议明确了今年经济工作的重点任务，其中包括“坚持民生为大，努力为人民群众多办实事”。贯彻落实党中央决策部署，必须把造福人民作为根本价值取向，坚持在发展中保障和改善民生，在保障和改善民生中开辟高质量发展新境界。

People’s Livelihood Needs Provide Endogenous Impetus for High-Quality Development

民生需求为推动高质量发展提供内生动力

In “Adhering to the People-Centered Development Thought and Advancing the Building of a Moderately Prosperous Society in All Respects,” General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: “Starting from solving the common and prominent issues of concern to the masses to advance the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects conforms to the requirements of supply-side structural reform, and is conducive to creating new growth points and raising long-term growth potential. Starting from the actual and potential needs of the masses, the supply formed has a foundation.” This important exposition precisely clarifies the promoting role of people’s livelihood needs in driving high-quality development. The people’s aspiration for a better life not only embodies the value orientation of livelihood work but is also the dynamic engine of economic development. Entering the New Era, the principal contradiction in Chinese society has undergone a transformation; people’s livelihood needs have shifted from “whether they exist or not” to “whether they are good or not,” and are leaping from a survival-oriented, material type to a development-oriented, quality type. The iterative upgrading of the demand structure not only clarifies the direction for ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood but also becomes an important force driving industrial transformation and upgrading and shaping new drivers of development, opening up broad space for high-quality development.

习近平总书记在《坚持以人民为中心的发展思想，推进全面建成小康社会进程》中指出：“从解决好人民群众普遍关心的突出问题出发推进全面小康社会建设，符合供给侧结构性改革的要求，有利于创造新的增长点、提高长期增长潜力。从人民群众现实和潜在需求出发，形成的供给是有基础的。”这一重要论述，精准阐明了民生需求对于推动高质量发展的促进作用。人民对美好生活的向往，既体现了民生工作的价值旨归，更是经济发展的动力引擎。进入新时代，我国社会主要矛盾发生转变，民生需求从“有没有”转向“好不好”，正在从生存型、物质型向发展型、品质型跃迁。需求结构的迭代升级，不仅为保障和改善民生明确了方向，更成为推动产业转型升级、塑造发展新动能的重要力量，为高质量发展开辟了广阔空间。

In the health field, the concept of proactive health is giving birth to new industrial paradigms. Health is the foundation of the people’s happy life and the basic condition for economic and social development. One of the most important indicators of modernization is the people’s health, which is also an inevitable requirement for promoting the well-rounded development of the individual. With the improvement of China’s economic and social development level, the health awareness of the masses has risen, and health needs are also shifting from “disease treatment” to “full-life-cycle guardianship,” driving the rapid development of the big health industry. Data show that the scale of China’s big health industry has steadily expanded in recent years and will continue to expand in the future, playing an important role in driving economic growth. Various localities, based on their own advantages, are promoting the innovative development of the health industry, forming a number of vivid practices. Zhejiang, relying on the construction of a “health brain,” has achieved real-time data interoperability among all secondary and above public medical institutions and primary-level medical institutions in the province, mutually recognizing hundreds of medical examination and testing items, saving medical expenses for the masses while driving the rapid development of the digital medical industry; Jiangsu has built sports-promoting-health institutions covering urban and rural areas, promoting the deep integration of fitness and leisure with medical services. In addition, on the consumption side, sub-markets of the big health industry such as home medical equipment and online fitness platforms are growing rapidly, further promoting innovation and upgrading in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, constructing a virtuous cycle of “demand driving innovation, innovation leading consumption.”

在健康领域，主动健康理念催生产业新范式。健康是人民幸福生活的基础，是经济社会发展的基础条件。现代化最重要的指标之一是人民健康，这也是促进人的全面发展的必然要求。随着我国经济社会发展水平提高，人民群众的健康意识提升，健康需求也从“疾病治疗”向“全生命周期守护”转变，推动大健康产业快速发展。数据显示，我国大健康产业规模近年来稳定扩大，未来还将持续扩大，对于拉动经济增长具有重要作用。各地立足自身优势推进健康产业创新发展，形成了一批生动实践。浙江依托“健康大脑”建设，实现全省二级及以上公立医疗机构和基层医疗机构数据实时互通，累计互认数百项医学检查检验项目，在为群众节省医疗费用的同时带动数字医疗产业快速发展；江苏建设覆盖城乡的运动促进健康机构，推动健身休闲与医疗服务深度融合。此外，在消费端，家用医疗设备、在线健身平台等大健康产业细分市场快速增长，进一步推动产业链上下游创新升级，构建起“需求驱动创新、创新引领消费”的良性循环。

In the eldercare field, the needs of the silver-haired group are lighting up a new blue ocean for the industry. In recent years, China’s population has been aging relatively quickly. By the end of 2025, the population aged 65 and above in China exceeded 220 million, accounting for 15.9% of the total population. Currently, the eldercare service needs of the elderly group are shifting from traditional “survival security” to modern “quality of life,” with diversified, differentiated, and individualized needs becoming increasingly strong and urgent. Providing precise services by classification and grade according to the needs of the elderly group, and incorporating the care of disabled elderly into the focus of the eldercare service system construction, can both better meet the eldercare service needs of the elderly and contain huge development opportunities. Various localities, based on the needs of the elderly group, take the deep integration of age-friendly renovation and smart eldercare as the starting point, constructing an “institution–community–home” eldercare service network, achieving the simultaneous resonance of livelihood security and industrial development. Beijing has introduced a “time bank” mutual-aid eldercare model, effectively activating the endogenous impetus of community eldercare through the storage and exchange of volunteer service hours, to a certain extent solving the problem of insufficient supply of professional eldercare services; Shanghai, focusing on the pain point of the “digital divide” for the elderly group, has promoted convenient services such as “one-button taxi-hailing” and “remote health monitoring,” becoming an important part of smart city construction. In addition, new business forms such as travel-based eldercare and cultural eldercare are flourishing, the special food market is growing rapidly, and research and development of smart equipment in the field of disabled care continues to achieve breakthroughs. These vivid practices fully demonstrate the strong pulling effect of eldercare service needs on industrial upgrading, constructing a virtuous cycle of “livelihood improvement–industrial upgrading–service quality enhancement.”

在养老领域，银发群体的需求点亮产业新蓝海。近年来，我国人口老龄化速度较快。2025年末，我国65岁及以上人口超过2.2亿，占总人口的15.9%。当前，老年群体的养老服务需求正在从传统“生存保障”向现代“品质生活”转变，多元化、差异化、个性化需求变得越来越旺盛和迫切。根据老年群体需求，分级分类提供精准服务，并将失能老年人照护纳入养老服务体系建设重点，既能更好满足老年人养老服务需求，也蕴含巨大发展机遇。各地立足老年群体需求，以适老化改造与智慧养老深度融合为抓手，构建起“机构—社区—居家”养老服务网络，实现了民生保障与产业发展的同频共振。北京推出“时间银行”互助养老模式，通过志愿服务时长的存储与兑换，有效激活社区养老内生动力，一定程度破解了专业养老服务供给不足的难题；上海聚焦老年群体“数字鸿沟”痛点，推进“一键叫车”“远程健康监测”等便民服务，成为智慧城市建设的重要内容。此外，旅居养老、文化养老等新业态蓬勃发展，特殊食品市场快速增长，失能照护领域的智慧化设备研发持续突破。这些生动实践充分体现出养老服务需求对产业升级的强劲拉动效应，构建起“民生改善—产业升级—服务提质”的良性循环。

In the housing field, quality needs are leading a new leap in spatial revolution. Having a place to live is an important part of the people’s aspiration for a better life. By the end of 2025, China’s urbanization rate of the permanent resident population reached 67.89%, urbanization is turning to a period of stable development, and urban development is shifting from a stage of large-scale incremental expansion to a stage mainly focused on stock quality improvement and efficiency enhancement. In this process, China’s housing development is shifting from “whether it exists or not” to “whether it is good or not,” and housing construction is transforming from “having a place to live” to “living in a superior place.” Conforming to this trend, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the country cumulatively renovated more than 240,000 old urban residential communities, carried out age-friendly and barrier-free renovations in 56,000 communities, added over 28 million square meters of cultural, leisure, and sports venues, and added 64,000 community service facilities such as those for eldercare and childcare, greatly improving the quality of residents’ living. As a place for the masses to settle down and live, the quality and safety of housing are of utmost importance. Led by the transformation toward green and smart development, in 2024, the area of newly built green buildings in cities and towns accounted for 97.9% of the newly built building area in cities and towns that year, the application of smart home technology is gradually becoming widespread, and the quality of housing supply has significantly improved. Various localities, combining their urban positioning, have carried out characteristic explorations, forming diversified paths for quality housing development. Shenzhen, Guangdong, addressing the problem of tight land resources, has promoted “industrial going upstairs” projects, achieving efficient unity of industrial upgrading and space utilization through high-floor-area-ratio design and functional composite layout; Chengdu, Sichuan, continues to advance the construction of a park city demonstration zone, strengthening the construction of park green spaces and community greenways, transforming ecological advantages into advantages in living quality. These practices both precisely respond to the masses’ demand for quality housing and promote the upgrading of urban functions and the optimization of industrial structure, achieving a dual leap in livelihood improvement and urban development.

在住房领域，品质需求引领空间革命新跨越。住有所居是人民群众对美好生活向往的重要内容。2025年末，我国常住人口城镇化率达67.89%，城镇化正在转向稳定发展期，城市发展正从大规模增量扩张阶段转向存量提质增效为主的阶段。在这一过程中，我国住房发展从“有没有”转向“好不好”，住房建设从“住有所居”向“住有优居”转型。顺应这一趋势，“十四五”时期，全国累计改造城镇老旧小区24万多个，实施适老化、无障碍改造小区达5.6万个，新增文化休闲、体育健身场地2800多万平方米，增加养老、托育等社区服务设施6.4万个，极大提升了居民居住品质。作为群众安身立命之所，住房质量安全至关重要。在绿色化、智慧化转型引领下，2024年城镇新建绿色建筑面积占当年城镇新建建筑面积的97.9%，智慧家居应用逐步普及，住房供给质量显著提升。各地结合城市定位开展特色探索，形成了多元化的品质住房发展路径。广东深圳针对土地资源紧张问题，推进“工业上楼”项目，通过高容积率设计与功能复合布局等，实现了产业升级与空间利用的高效统一；四川成都持续推进公园城市示范区建设，加强公园绿地和社区绿道建设，将生态优势转化为居住品质优势。这些实践既精准回应了群众对品质住房的需求，又推动了城市功能升级与产业结构优化，实现了民生改善与城市发展的双重跨越。

Overall, changes in residents’ consumption needs have given rise to a large number of new industries, new business forms, and new models, both expanding development space and shaping new drivers of development. Unlike extensive growth, demand-driven development exhibits distinct endogeneity and sustainability. This is both an important feature of high-quality development and an important focal point for ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood in the course of development.

总的来看，居民消费需求的变化，催生出大批新产业、新业态、新模式，既拓展了发展空间，也塑造了发展新动能。与外延式增长不同，需求驱动的发展呈现出鲜明的内生性与可持续性。这既是高质量发展的重要特征，也是在发展中保障和改善民生的重要着力点。

High-quality development consolidates the foundation for ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood

高质量发展夯实保障和改善民生的基础

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in “Jointly Promoting Global Development Toward a Balanced, Coordinated and Inclusive New Stage” that “development is the key to realizing the people’s happiness”; in “China’s Economy Has Shifted from a Stage of High-Speed Growth to a Stage of High-Quality Development” he pointed out that “high-quality development is development that can well meet the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life.” Enhancing the people’s well-being is not a castle in the air; it must be built on a solid foundation. High-quality development is precisely the key to consolidating this foundation. In ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood while promoting high-quality development, it is necessary to properly handle the relationship between efficiency and fairness, both adhering to the unity of insisting on quality-based results and giving play to the scale effect, continuously making the “cake” bigger to consolidate the foundation of the people’s happiness, and also distributing the “cake” well, so that the fruits of reform and development benefit all the people more and more fairly, thereby stimulating the vitality to further make the “cake” bigger.

习近平总书记在《共同推动全球发展迈向平衡协调包容新阶段》中指出：“发展是实现人民幸福的关键”；在《我国经济已由高速增长阶段转向高质量发展阶段》中指出：“高质量发展，就是能够很好满足人民日益增长的美好生活需要的发展”。增进民生福祉不是空中楼阁，必须建立在坚实基础之上。高质量发展正是夯实这一基础的关键。在推动高质量发展中保障和改善民生，需要处理好效率和公平的关系，既坚持以质取胜和发挥规模效应相统一，通过不断做大“蛋糕”夯实人民幸福的基础，也要分好“蛋糕”，让改革发展成果更多更公平惠及全体人民，激发进一步做大“蛋糕”的活力。

To promote high-quality development, it is necessary to improve the quality and efficiency of economic development through deepening reform and innovation-driven development, produce more and better material and spiritual products, and continuously meet the people’s growing material and cultural needs. In practice, we implement the new development philosophy, promote the construction of a new development pattern, implement supply-side structural reform, formulate a series of major regional strategies of overall significance, and continuously promote changes in the quality, efficiency, and driving forces of economic development, so that high-quality development is solidly advanced. For example, the accessibility of infrastructure and the support of industrial supporting facilities are not only manifestations of the effectiveness of high-quality development but also build a three-dimensional guarantee network for enhancing the people’s well-being. In the transportation sector, the national high-speed railway operating mileage exceeds 50,000 kilometers, weaving a rapid transportation network connecting north and south, east and west, turning “returning to Jiangling in one day from a thousand li away” into reality; the technical grade and road surface quality of rural roads have significantly improved, and the proportion of graded roads continues to increase, not only linking villages with cities but also smoothing the channels for agricultural products to reach larger markets, allowing mountain specialties to go directly to the market and fatten farmers’ wallets. In the communications sector, 5G networks have covered 95% of administrative villages, the construction of digital villages continues to deepen, driving the continuous rise of rural online retail sales and increasing farmers’ income, so that people in remote areas can enjoy distance education and online medical care through a mobile phone, sharing the development dividends of the digital age. These vivid practices have all transformed the achievements of high-quality development in the New Era into tangible and perceptible livelihood improvements for the masses.

推动高质量发展，要通过深化改革、创新驱动，提高经济发展质量和效益，生产出更多更好的物质精神产品，不断满足人民日益增长的物质文化需要。在实践中，我们贯彻新发展理念，推动构建新发展格局，实施供给侧结构性改革，制定一系列具有全局性意义的区域重大战略，不断推动经济发展质量变革、效率变革、动力变革，高质量发展扎实推进。例如，基础设施的通达、产业配套的支撑既是高质量发展成效的体现，也为增进民生福祉搭建了立体保障网。在交通领域，全国高铁营业里程超过5万公里，编织起纵贯南北、横连东西的快速交通网，让“千里江陵一日还”走进现实；农村公路技术等级和路面质量明显提升，等级路占比不断提高，不仅串联起乡村与城市，更畅通了农产品走向更大市场的通道，让山区特产直达市场，鼓起农民腰包。在通信领域，5G网络已覆盖95%的行政村，数字乡村建设持续深化，带动农村网络零售额不断上涨、农民收入增加，偏远地区群众通过一部手机就能享受远程教育、在线医疗，共享数字时代的发展红利。这些生动实践都让新时代的高质量发展成果转化为群众可感可及的民生实事。

To promote high-quality development, it is necessary to take the concept of shared development as a guide, adhere to development for the people, development relying on the people, and development achievements shared by the people, better safeguard social fairness and justice, and solidly promote common prosperity for all the people. In practice, we continuously improve the basic socialist economic system, accelerate the improvement of the social fairness guarantee system with equal rights, equal opportunities, and fair rules as the main content, build a diversified investment mechanism with government overall guidance, active market participation, and broad social coordination, and promote the upgrading of livelihood security from the bottom-line supply of “having or not having” to the quality upgrade of “good or not good.” For example, in the field of social security, we use modern information technology means such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence to build a unified, efficient, compatible, convenient, and secure national medical insurance information platform, promoting the scope of cross-provincial direct settlement to gradually expand from hospitalization to ordinary outpatient services and 10 types of outpatient chronic and special diseases, benefiting more insured persons and making medical reimbursement more convenient for mobile populations; in the housing sector, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China built and raised more than 11 million units (rooms) of various types of indemnificatory housing and resettlement housing for urban village and dilapidated urban housing renovation, benefiting more than 30 million people, significantly enhancing the people’s sense of gain, happiness, and security, so that more new citizens and young people not only “have a place to live” but also “live well”; in terms of equalization of basic public services, China continues to promote the standardization of basic public services, breaking down household registration and regional restrictions, so that both urban residents and rural masses can enjoy roughly equivalent services in fields such as education, medical care, and culture. The dual empowerment of material support and institutional guarantees achieves the organic unity of development quality and the warmth of people’s livelihood, solidly promoting common prosperity for all the people.

推动高质量发展，要以共享发展理念为指引，坚持发展为了人民、发展依靠人民、发展成果由人民共享，更好维护社会公平正义，扎实推进全体人民共同富裕。在实践中，我们不断完善社会主义基本经济制度，加快完善以权利公平、机会公平、规则公平为主要内容的社会公平保障体系，构建政府统筹引导、市场积极发力、社会广泛协同的多元投入机制，推动民生保障从“有没有”的底线供给向“好不好”的品质升级跨越。比如，在社会保障领域，我们利用大数据、云计算、人工智能等现代信息技术手段，建成了全国统一、高效、兼容、便捷、安全的医疗保障信息平台，推动跨省直接结算范围逐步从住院拓展到普通门诊和10种门诊慢特病，惠及更多参保人员，让流动人员看病报销更省心；在住房领域，“十四五”时期我国建设筹集各类保障性住房和城中村、城市危旧房改造等安置住房1100多万套（间）、惠及3000多万群众，人民群众获得感、幸福感、安全感显著提升，更多新市民、青年人不仅“有房住”，而且“住得好”；在基本公共服务均等化方面，我国持续推进基本公共服务标准化建设，打破户籍与地域限制，无论是城市居民还是农村群众，都能在教育、医疗、文化等领域享受大体相当的服务。物质支撑和制度保障双重赋能，实现了发展质量与民生温度的有机统一，扎实推进了全体人民共同富裕。

Practice has fully proved that only by unswervingly promoting high-quality development can we continuously consolidate the material foundation for ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood, guarantee the people’s rights to equal participation and equal development, enable all the people to steadily advance on the road to common prosperity, and ensure that Chinese-path modernization is always full of warmth and strength.

实践充分证明，坚定不移推动高质量发展，才能不断夯实保障和改善民生的物质基础，保证人民平等参与、平等发展权利，让全体人民在共同富裕的道路上稳步前行，让中国式现代化始终充满温暖与力量。

Forming a virtuous cycle of promoting economic development and ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood

形成推动经济发展与保障和改善民生的良性循环

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in “Advancing the Great Cause of Building a Strong Country and National Rejuvenation with Chinese-Path Modernization” that “Chinese-path modernization must not only create higher efficiency than capitalism but also more effectively safeguard social fairness, better achieving the mutual consideration, promotion, and unity of efficiency and fairness.” The upgrading of the level and optimization of the structure of people’s livelihood needs provide broad space for industrial iteration and upgrading, and the improvement of quality and efficiency of industrial development provides solid support for the improvement of people’s livelihood. Expanding development space while meeting the people’s livelihood needs requires building a virtuous cycle of “industrial development—livelihood improvement—consumption upgrading—industrial development.” This is a vivid practice of the people-centered development thought, which not only reflects the fundamental purpose of development but also reveals the inherent laws of development.

习近平总书记在《以中国式现代化全面推进强国建设、民族复兴伟业》中指出：“中国式现代化既要创造比资本主义更高的效率，又要更有效地维护社会公平，更好实现效率与公平相兼顾、相促进、相统一。”民生需求的层次提升与结构优化为产业迭代升级提供了广阔空间，产业发展的提质增效为民生改善提供了坚实支撑。在满足民生需求中拓展发展空间，需要构建“产业发展—民生改善—消费升级—产业发展”的良性循环。这是以人民为中心的发展思想的生动实践，既体现了发展的根本目的，也揭示了发展的内在规律。

The Central Economic Work Conference held at the end of last year required “focusing on continuously enhancing the people’s well-being, increasing efforts to ensure and improve the people’s livelihood,” pointing the way for us to adhere to ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood in the course of development. At present, China’s development has entered a period where strategic opportunities and risk challenges coexist, and uncertain and unpredictable factors increase. The economy is at a major juncture of climbing over a ridge in high-quality development, and the people’s needs for a better life are growing day by day and becoming more extensive. This all the more requires us to grasp the dialectical and unified relationship between economic development and livelihood improvement, adhere to systematic thinking, both accurately meeting the diverse needs of the masses through targeted policies, releasing consumption potential, and expanding industrial space; and enhancing development momentum through industrial upgrading, improving the quality and level of livelihood security. We must coordinate efforts in accurately matching needs, strengthening policy guarantees, and stimulating development vitality, promoting the formation of a vivid situation of mutual promotion and spiral upward progress between the two, activating the endogenous driving force of high-quality development, expanding the broad space for high-quality development, allowing the fruits of reform and development to benefit all the people more and more fairly, and writing a warm and weighty livelihood answer sheet on the new journey of building a strong country and national rejuvenation.

去年底召开的中央经济工作会议要求“围绕不断增进民生福祉，加大保障和改善民生力度”，为我们坚持在发展中保障和改善民生指明了方向。当前，我国发展进入战略机遇和风险挑战并存、不确定难预料因素增多的时期，经济正处于高质量发展爬坡过坎的重大关口，人民美好生活需要日益增长、更加广泛。这更要求我们把握好经济发展与民生改善的辩证统一关系，坚持系统思维，既通过精准施策满足群众多样化需求，释放消费潜力、拓展产业空间；又通过产业升级增强发展动能，提升民生保障的质量和水平。要在精准对接需求、强化政策保障、激发发展活力上协同发力，推动二者形成互促共进、螺旋式上升的生动局面，激活高质量发展的内生动力，拓展高质量发展的广阔空间，让改革发展成果更多更公平惠及全体人民，在强国建设、民族复兴的新征程上书写温暖厚重的民生答卷。

Accurately match people’s livelihood needs, transforming “what the masses hope for” into “what development does.” People’s livelihood needs have both diversity and hierarchy, from basic living security to the pursuit of quality of life, from inclusive public services to personalized consumption experiences, showing distinct characteristics of diversification and individualization. This requires promoting the transformation of livelihood services from extensive supply in the form of “flood irrigation” to precise supply in the form of “targeted drip irrigation,” using new needs to lead new supply, using new supply to create new needs, and promoting a positive interaction between consumption and investment, supply and demand. To this end, it is necessary to go deep into communities, villages, and enterprises to conduct frontline research, accurately capture pain points and difficulties in fields such as education, medical care, elderly care, housing, and employment, while being good at digging out growth points for industrial development from needs, finding the best combination point between livelihood improvement and industrial upgrading, and opening up new development space by adhering to the coordinated and dynamic balance of both supply and demand sides.

精准对接民生需求，将“群众盼的”转化为“发展干的”。民生需求兼具多样性与层次性，从基本生活保障到品质生活追求、从普惠公共服务到个性化消费体验，呈现出多元化、个性化的鲜明特征。这就要求推动民生服务从“大水漫灌”式的粗放供给转向“精准滴灌”式的精准供给，以新需求引领新供给，以新供给创造新需求，促进消费和投资、供给和需求良性互动。为此，要深入社区、乡村、企业开展一线调研，精准捕捉教育、医疗、养老、住房、就业等领域的痛点难点，同时善于从需求中挖掘产业发展的增长点，找到民生改善与产业升级的最佳结合点，通过坚持供需两侧协同发力、动态平衡打开发展新空间。

Strengthen policy coordination and support, promoting the resonance of livelihood improvement and economic development at the same frequency. Building a virtuous cycle that promotes mutual reinforcement between economic development and livelihood improvement cannot be separated from the systematic design and coordinated efforts of macro policies. As an important regulatory tool, macro policies must both hold the “bottom line” of livelihood security, promote the equalization of basic public services, and allow the masses to share the fruits of reform and development; and raise the “high line” of industrial development, guide resources to gather in high-quality fields, stimulate the vitality of business entities, and achieve the organic unity of inclusiveness and orientation. In policy design, we can focus on strengthening the coordination of livelihood policies and industrial policies, improving the institutional system for ensuring and improving the people’s livelihood, deeply integrating livelihood security measures with the direction of industrial development, enhancing the consistency of policy orientations, and avoiding policy fragmentation.

强化政策协同支撑，推动民生改善与经济发展同频共振。构建推动经济发展与民生改善相互促进的良性循环，离不开宏观政策的系统设计与协同发力。宏观政策作为重要调控工具，既要守住民生保障的“底线”，推进基本公共服务均等化，让群众共享改革发展成果；又要拉起产业发展的“高线”，引导资源向优质领域集聚，激发经营主体活力，实现普惠性与导向性的有机统一。在政策设计中，可围绕加强民生政策与产业政策协同，健全保障和改善民生制度体系，将民生保障措施与产业发展导向深度融合，增强政策取向一致性，避免政策碎片化。

Stimulate endogenous momentum, enabling the masses to become both participants in and beneficiaries of development. The masses are not only the creators of history but also the main force of development. In the cycle of people’s livelihood and development, the masses are both the proposers of livelihood needs and the participants, drivers, and beneficiaries of industrial development. Only by fully mobilizing the masses’ initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity can we inject inexhaustible momentum into the cycle of people’s livelihood and development. We must adhere to joint contribution and shared benefits, forming a vibrant situation in which everyone participates, everyone does their utmost, and everyone has a sense of achievement. This means not only enabling the masses to gain tangible benefits through the improvement of people’s livelihood, enhancing their sense of gain, happiness, and security, but also building platforms for the masses to participate in development, allowing them to increase their income and realize their value through participation.

激发内生动力，让群众成为推动发展的参与者和受益者。人民群众既是历史的创造者，也是发展的主力军。在民生与发展的循环中，人民群众既是民生需求的提出者，又是产业发展的参与者、推动者和受益者。只有充分调动人民群众的积极性、主动性、创造性，才能为民生与发展的循环注入不竭动力。要坚持共建共享，形成人人参与、人人尽力、人人都有成就感的生动局面，既通过民生改善让群众获得实实在在的利益，增强获得感、幸福感、安全感，更搭建群众参与发展的平台，让人民群众在参与中增加收入、实现价值。

(The author is a researcher at the Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC [National Academy of Governance].)

（作者为中央党校（国家行政学院）习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想研究中心研究员）

Online editor: Huihui

网络编辑：慧慧