China’s leaders are currently putting the finishing touches on the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan, which will cover the 2021-25 period. But one aspect of the plan – the so-called dual-circulation strategy – is already attracting the world’s attention. Many fear that China is “turning inward” just when the global economy is staring down the barrel of a recession. These fears are misplaced.

China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, an economic and social blueprint, could give important insights to U.S. companies planning China business strategies, by providing industry specific plans, local designations for free trade zones, and new policies across the country.

China’s new Five-Year Plan emphasizes the quality of growth rather than speed as the country enters a period of ‘new normal’. Maintaining 6.5 percent of economic growth is a priority, but it is even more important to keep such a growth rate sustainable and to channel that growth toward improving the quality of life for the majority of Chinese citizens.

Five Year Plan contains an important proposal that has largely been overlooked: the ‘professionalization and modernization’ of agriculture. The history of agricultural development in countries like the United States suggests the destabilizing consequences in the Chinese countryside.

The years ahead offer parallel tracks for growth for both countries, and an “early harvest” for US enterprises, if opportunities are seized in areas such as innovation, Internet plus, reducing capacity, expanding the service sector – especially in healthcare -- and developing emerging industries.

As it acts upon the 13th Five Year Plan, Beijing must combine government fiscal investment, corporate R&D, industrial investment, venture capital, bank credit investment, capital market financing, science funding and more, to make a financial system with a full range of support to update China’s economy. An efficiently operating system will be key to the nation’s future competitiveness.

Last month, China’s leaders revealed details of the 13th Five-Year Plan, which will guide the economy’s trajectory until 2020. Gone are the directives to expand industrial production at a breakneck pace that characterized previous five-year plans. Now, the focus is on achieving sustainable long-term growth, underpinned by domestic consumption, a stronger services sector, entrepreneurship, and innovation.

Except for the disruptive years of the “cultural revolution”, the five-year planning system has given the country a unified strategic outlook, especially in the recent years of opening up and development. The current CPC Central Committee is steering the Chinese government, in the coming five years, to emphasize people’s livelihood and well-being, and to effectively promote economic transformation and consolidation.

In the past, people measured China’s contribution to global economic growth through China’s GDP growth. But many factors in the GDP are the profits created by the foreign companies’ investments in China, so new ways of looking at the impact of China’s economy are in order.

The expansion of the Chinese economy and the resulting improvements in the lives of Chinese people have been impressive outcomes of the just-ending Five-Year Plan, despite the recent slowdown in the economy. The blueprint for (2016-2020) is taking shape to build on that progress.