(Yicai) Feb. 6 -- Shanghai has released a draft for its 15th Five-Year Plan, aiming to achieve an average annual gross domestic product growth of around 5 percent throughout 2030.

"Setting 5 percent as the GDP growth target requires active responses and significant efforts due to the complex external environment," Ma Haiqian, deputy director of the Shanghai Academy of Development and Reform, told Yicai. On the other hand, 5 percent is not a ceiling, as there is still considerable potential for further growth, she added.

The continuous breakthroughs in Shanghai's three leading industries and high-end industrial clusters are key sources of both incremental and qualitative growth, Ma noted. In addition, the integration and interaction of technological and industrial innovation, along with the activation and release of strong technological innovation capabilities, serve as an endogenous driving force for industrial development.

The draft, which is under review during the ongoing Shanghai Two Sessions, also forecasts the city's overall labor productivity to exceed CNY520,000 (USD74,930) per person during the five years, with the value added from core industries of the digital economy projected to account for over 20 percent of GDP.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Shanghai will continue to regard overall labor productivity as one of its primary planning indicators, according to Ma. The city will first rely on improving the skill level of the labor force, paying attention to the impact of artificial intelligence on employment, accelerating the transformation of job skills, and deepening the integration of industry, education, and school-enterprise cooperation.

Shanghai will depend on the promotion of industrial competitiveness through scientific and technological innovation, focusing on tackling key core technologies, and nurturing emerging and future industries, and will rely on reform and opening-up to optimize the institutional environment, advance the construction of a national unified market, deepen institutional opening-up, reduce institutional transaction costs, and accelerate the creation of a first-class business environment to attract and gather more high-level and innovative market entities from around the globe, Ma pointed out.

Moreover, the draft expects Shanghai's proportion of total research and development expenditure to the GDP to exceed 5 percent by 2030, with about 85 high-value invention patents per 10,000 people.

To achieve the above goals, the city will rely on advanced manufacturing as the backbone and build a '2+3+6+6' modern industrial system, aiming to create world-class, high-end industrial clusters and promote the 'Shanghai Manufacturing' brand. In those five years, the annual growth rate of the output value of the three leading manufacturing industries is expected to remain above 10 percent.

The '2+3+6+6' modern industrial system refers to the transformation of traditional industries through two processes -- digitization and greening. Three refers to the city's leading industries -- integrated circuits, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence -- and the first six to the emerging pillar industry clusters: next-generation electronic information, intelligent connected new energy vehicles, high-end equipment, advanced materials, new energy and green low-carbon industries, and fashion consumer goods. The second six refers to future industries, which are future manufacturing, future information, future materials, future energy, future space, and future health.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Shanghai should promote new industrialization, develop new quality productive forces, and build a modern industrial system with advanced manufacturing as its core, thereby taking the lead in forging a competitive development path, Zheng Kaijie, a deputy to the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress and director of the Shanghai Development Research Center of Economy and Informatization, told Yicai. However, there are still some challenges and issues to address, she added.

Editor: Futura Costaglione