Market Critical Moment: CITIC Securities Spring Forum Makes Major Announcements: Discussing Stock Market, Confidence, and New Opportunities for Industrial Upgrade

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The CITIC Securities 2026 Spring Capital Market Forum will be held in Beijing on March 19-20, 2026. The conference invites numerous senior experts, scholars, institutional and industry representatives, and over 400 listed companies to participate in discussions. It provides a comprehensive outlook on the global macro landscape and investment strategies under new circumstances, delving into hot topics such as the policies from the Two Sessions, the 14th Five-Year Plan and reforms, major asset allocation, geopolitical conflicts and commodity markets, large model market practices, artificial intelligence and industrial applications, real estate and REITs markets, energy transition, and breakthroughs in new materials.

On the first day’s main forum, Zhu Yexin, member of the CITIC Securities Party Committee, executive member of the Management Committee, and head of the Research Department, delivered a speech. He stated that 2026 is a year of extraordinary significance—it’s the starting year of the 14th Five-Year Plan and a critical period for China to move toward the goal of basically modernizing socialism by 2035. The recently concluded National Two Sessions have also charted a grand blueprint for high-quality development amid complex domestic and international situations. At this new starting point full of opportunities and challenges, we need to uphold the spirit of innovation and reform, use high-quality development as a certainty to respond to external uncertainties, and jointly explore the new landscape of China’s economy and capital markets.

As the world’s second-largest economy, China’s economy remains stable and continues to be the main engine and stabilizer of global economic growth. The 2026 government work report explicitly sets the expected economic growth target at 4.5%-5%. This goal aligns with China’s long-term vision for 2035 and reflects a focus on quality growth, leaving room for structural adjustments, risk prevention, and reform.

The outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan emphasizes building a modern industrial system and consolidating the foundation of the real economy, proposing to develop a modern industrial system led by advanced manufacturing. Against this backdrop, new productive forces represented by artificial intelligence, commercial aerospace, and biotechnology are moving from conceptual exploration to industrial implementation, rewriting the growth trajectory of the economy and markets. Even more exciting is the strategic resonance between Chinese companies going global and the internationalization of the Renminbi, opening vast possibilities for systemic reassessment of Chinese assets.

The ecosystem of capital markets has been significantly optimized, with stabilizing the market and improving the long-term investment environment becoming essential for high-quality development. A market with better investor protection, a more inclusive multi-level capital market system, and deeper reforms of the ChiNext Board—such as optimizing refinancing mechanisms, setting more inclusive listing standards, and supporting new industries, business models, and technological innovation—are taking shape. This solid foundation is continuously enhancing China’s assets’ global attractiveness. Driven by fundamental repair and increased inflows of funds, the A-share market is at a critical turning point from stock-based competition to incremental allocation, forming a more resilient and stable new ecosystem.

Upholding the original aspiration of serving the country through finance, CITIC Securities will continue to deepen its efforts in the “Five Major Articles” of finance, empowering high-quality development comprehensively. As a key participant and builder of the capital market, CITIC Securities will strive to improve its professional service capabilities, asset pricing, and risk management, aiming to become the most trusted domestic leading and internationally first-class Chinese investment bank for global clients and contribute fully to building a strong financial nation.

The latest investment strategy report for Spring 2026 from CITIC Securities’ Research Department states that Chief A-Share Strategist Qiu Xiang believes that geopolitical turbulence coincides with the index reaching a critical point, making spring a period for rebuilding confidence and making decisive moves. Under the backdrop of rising global energy costs and weakening financial conditions, valuation and pricing power are the two most important factors. In terms of allocation, the focus remains on China’s advantageous manufacturing and revaluation of pricing power.

Qiu Xiang highlights three key issues facing the market: First, the Middle East geopolitical conflicts are gradually evolving into sustained and intense disruptions of global supply chains. After a 1.5-year bull run in the A-share index, what can continue to push it higher? Second, global financial conditions are beginning to weaken—will market styles undergo major shifts? Third, the disruptive innovation brought by AI and the rapid expansion of code are accelerating, impacting economic structure and asset allocation directions. The answers to these questions will determine investors’ strategies.

From an index perspective, valuation repair space is limited; corporate profit margins’ recovery is crucial for the next phase of the A-share bull market. Disruptions in global supply chains once again provide an opportunity to test China’s manufacturing pricing power. From a style perspective, Middle East conflicts are catalysts for style shifts this year. Under rising global costs and weakening financial conditions, valuation and pricing power are key. From an industry trend standpoint, the expansion of code and physical resource scarcity—reflected in China as increased pricing power of advantageous manufacturing industries—are reinforced by AI’s disruptive innovation and global energy supply chain disruptions. Allocation suggestions include focusing on China’s advantageous manufacturing sectors such as chemicals, non-ferrous metals, electrical equipment, and new energy, with price increases as a core trading signal, and increasing exposure to undervalued factors like insurance, securities, and power.

Regarding the macroeconomic outlook for 2026, Ming Ming, Chief Economist of CITIC Securities, stated in his speech “Global Economic Rebalancing” that China’s economy is expected to continue recovering amid volatility. Ming Ming estimates that China’s real GDP growth in 2026 will be around 4.9%, with a “V-shaped” recovery pattern throughout the year, and nominal GDP likely to rebound quickly amid rising inflation. On macro policies, fiscal policy will remain proactive, with a deficit rate maintained at 4%, special bonds likely to favor project construction, and the scale of policy financial instruments increased to 800 billion yuan. Monetary policy has room for “flexible and efficient” use of reserve ratio cuts and interest rate reductions—expecting 1-2 rate cuts and one RRR cut during the year, with greater role for structural tools.

On the global landscape, Ming Ming pointed out that the global economic pattern is expected to rebalance. The U.S. economy faces structural issues, with inflation and economic slowdown intertwined, leading the Federal Reserve to adopt a cautious approach to rate cuts. In major asset classes, equities are relatively attractive amid recovery and inflation; short-term government bond yields may hover around 1.8%; and the RMB is expected to appreciate modestly under a weak dollar environment.

Yang Fan, Chief Analyst of Macro and Policy at CITIC Securities, believes that the current macro and policy landscape shows a pattern of “reform breakthroughs and industrial leaps.” Externally, the long-term reshaping of Middle East geopolitics, the impact of U.S. midterm elections on policy focus, and expected multiple U.S.-China summit meetings this year suggest stability in bilateral relations. Domestically, demand-side recovery is moderate, government work targets are steady, and re-inflation expectations are clear. Fiscal policies remain stable compared to last year, with investment stabilization being key. Under debt reduction efforts, local governments’ leverage is limited, and the policy tools’ leverage effect is expected to be prominent.

Reforms are advancing on multiple fronts: debt reduction is entering its final sprint; income distribution reform continues to deepen, aiming to narrow income gaps and expand the middle-income group; anti-inflation measures balance short-term capacity regulation and long-term systemic reforms; fiscal and tax reforms strengthen central government’s coordination and optimize resource allocation. Industry focus includes energy security and aerospace strategies, with accelerated modernization of industrial systems and emerging future industries gaining development opportunities.

The first day’s conference also featured prominent guests, including Yin Yanlin, member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference; Zhao Jiehui, founder, chairman, and CEO of Dipu Technology; and Zhu Jun, Vice President of Tsinghua University’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and founder of Shengshu Technology. They shared insights on Two Sessions policy interpretations, general world models, enterprise large model market practices, and analysis.

Yin Yanlin’s keynote speech titled “Winning the Future through Practical Innovation” deeply analyzed the spirit of the Two Sessions and the “14th Five-Year Plan” blueprint. He reviewed major achievements during the 14th Five-Year Plan, noting China’s economy surpassing 140 trillion yuan, vibrant industrial upgrades and technological innovation, and improved social security, laying a solid foundation for the “15th Five-Year Plan.” He emphasized that the plan highlights high-quality development, strengthening domestic circulation, promoting common prosperity, and balancing development and security, with 109 major projects guiding future growth.

For 2026’s economic work, Yin Yanlin believes macro policies will be more proactive, with coordinated fiscal and monetary efforts focusing on building a strong domestic market, cultivating new productive forces, deepening reform and opening-up, improving people’s livelihoods, and preventing risks. He concluded that China’s long-term positive fundamentals remain unchanged, and with confidence and innovation, the goals of the first year of the “15th Five-Year Plan” will be successfully achieved, leading to a brighter future.

Zhao Jiehui, founder, chairman, and CEO of Dipu Technology, shared his outlook on China’s enterprise large model market. He pointed out that a major challenge in enterprise AI deployment is the need for precise business understanding and flexible execution by AI employees. Requirements for AI models go beyond “knowing” general knowledge—they must also enable “standardized execution” within enterprises.

By offering AI enterprise operating systems, large enterprise models, and ontology datasets, the company helps manufacturing, retail, and other sectors implement multiple business ontologies and common skills. Long-term, this can become the infrastructure for industrial intelligence in the AI era, building a digital workforce that supports long-term enterprise development and gradually replacing traditional business information systems.

Professor Zhu Jun, Vice President of Tsinghua University’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and founder of Shengshu Technology, delivered a speech titled “Universal World Models: The Bridge Connecting Digital and Physical Worlds,” outlining the key technological path from content generation in generative AI to its application in the physical world. He noted that as unified model architectures mature and data paradigms improve, world models are reaching a critical development inflection point, becoming a core technology toward AGI (Artificial General Intelligence).

In response to this trend, academia and industry are accelerating efforts to realize universal world models. Teams like Shengshu Technology and Tsinghua University have proposed models such as Vidar, a video-based embodied foundation model, and Motus, a unified general base world model, in 2025. Preliminary results show these models excel in various embodied tasks, demonstrating significant advantages in success rate and generalization, providing initial validation for real-world applications in physical environments.

The two-day conference included four themed sub-forums and an AI salon, with nearly a thousand exchanges during the event, creating an efficient dialogue platform for global professional investors.