China’s “Two Sessions” and the opportunity for Africa

A very significant event in the Chinese political calendar is taking place in Beijing and, as usual, it goes beyond the optics. The fourth session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) and the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country’s two main legislative and consultative bodies, would lay the foundation for China’s direction later in the year and beyond.

The “two sessions” are the key institutional expression of China’s consultative and inclusive political process, and reflect in concrete terms its “whole-process people’s democracy,” in which institutional procedures are organically linked to the substantive realization of tangible and practical results. The “Two Sessions,” two important institutions rooted in China’s national condition and social realities, have been central to modern China and have evolved not only as important organs of democratic expression but as crucial pillars in China’s contemporary governance process. Given that China is the second largest economy in the world, contributing around 30% to global growth and 70% to global poverty reduction, the way China is governed is naturally of interest beyond its borders.

For the past 36 years, Beijing’s most important act in foreign relations at the beginning of each year has been the foreign minister’s visit to Africa.

It has been Africa’s largest trading partner for the past 17 years, with bilateral trade reaching a record high of $348 billion in 2025, an increase of about 17.7% from 2024. Exports from Africa to China grew 5.4% to $123 billion. The prospects for further narrowing the trade balance gap remain very high. Starting from May, after the conclusion of the “two sessions”, the mechanism for the zero-duty entry of high-quality products from 53 countries, excluding Swaziland, onto the Chinese market will come into full force. The main agenda of this year’s “two sessions” will be the approval of China’s 15th Five-Year Development Plan. The plan aims to consolidate China’s unified national market, offering the world the opportunity of an unprecedented large single market. The high-quality opening up of the Chinese market would be accompanied by a deliberate policy to promote domestic consumption by substantially raising incomes.

China’s top legislative body, the National People’s Congress, and its high-power consultative counterpart, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, have their work significantly reduced; examine the details and connect them to the big picture of the country’s overall economic roadmaps over the next five years, with periodic oversight of its implementation trajectories. The political advantage of the consultative and inclusive process as a key operating mechanism of Chinese political life is that it brings out the best of the country’s manpower endowments, ensuring that no insight or perspective is left out in building a critical consensus on governance and development. The “two sessions”, which constitute the critical and essential mechanism for the structural framework of consultations, are a tribute to the country’s institutional monument for forging national consensus and translating it into governance efficiency and binding practical outcomes of expanding prosperity for a broad segment of the Chinese people.

At the session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) on March 5, Premier Li Qiang delivered the 2026 government work report on behalf of the State Council. Among the wide range of economic and development tasks outlined in the report, which include the GDP growth target for 2026 and subsequent actions to achieve its economic goals. He projected the GDP target at 4.5-5% and promised that politicians “will strive for better results in actual implementation”. This could be interpreted in some quarters as a lowering of ambitions. in reality it may reflect a more calibrated and strategic approach to macroeconomic management. First, it reflects China’s realistic recognition of some uncertain headwinds and instead of hiding them. With a trade rift with the US still ongoing, unpredictability in Washington and overall uncertainty in external demand, pegging risk at single digits sends the wrong signal if conditions worsen. Therefore a multiple interval preserves policy flexibility which ensures stability and predictability. More importantly, the range reflects the shift from speed to the priority given to high-quality development, a measure that would give effect to new quality manufacturing forces.

In a world of growing uncertainty, China offers stability and a road map to shared prosperity beyond its borders. From the world’s workshop to humanity’s most stable market, the country, through a series of policy measures, concretely transforms into a great global opportunity.

China’s economic roadmap in implementing the 15th Five-Year Plan offers a wide range of opportunities for Africa, particularly facilitated market access which, if properly utilized by African countries, could support long-standing policy priorities of structural transformation that enables broad diversification of products and export range. With rising Chinese household incomes and the Chinese government’s efforts to structurally calibrate domestic consumption as the main economic driver, high-quality African products would be able to find a niche in the world’s largest single market, with implications for accelerating industrialization in Africa.

Africa is more properly considered the world’s next industrial frontier and laboratory. But none of these would have happened on their own. Just as China, through extraordinary policy measures, has calibrated its evolving economic trajectories, with results that continually elevate it, it is only in compliance with a deliberate choice implemented by relevant policy instruments that Africa can not only realize its destiny in the current objective international perspective of economic opportunities.

China’s opportunity stands out as an important bridge for Africa’s economic transition towards sustainable growth and inclusive development and issues relating to these prospects would be clarified in the ongoing “two sessions” of China’s key legislative and consultative bodies. And this is why Africa should show more than casual interest in a major event in China’s national political calendar.