National Development and Reform Commission

What it is

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) is a constituent department of the State Council and is described as a macro-control department that comprehensively studies and drafts economic and social development policy, balances aggregates and guides overall economic system reform ^[1]. In its own staffing document the commission describes itself as a ministerial-level department of the State Council ^[2]. The two descriptions are complementary rather than competing: it is a ministry like other ministries, but the object of its work is defined in aggregate terms — the totals of investment, output, prices and finance rather than a single industry or service.

Where it comes from

The commission's predecessor was the State Planning Commission, established in 1952 ^[1]. That body was renamed the State Development Planning Commission in 1998 ^[1]. In 2003, with some functions of the former State Commission for Restructuring the Economy and the former State Economic and Trade Commission folded into it, it was reorganised as the National Development and Reform Commission ^[1]. The organisational history therefore runs through three names and two absorptions of function; the sequence of names records how the remit widened, from plan drafting towards reform coordination and economic management.

What it does

Its duties include drafting and implementing national economic and social development strategies, medium- and long-term plans and annual plans ^[1]. It is responsible for summarising and analysing fiscal and financial conditions, participating in the formulation of fiscal and monetary policy, and drafting and implementing industrial policy and price policy ^[1].

On investment the commission proposes the total scale of fixed asset investment across society and plans major projects and the distribution of productive forces ^[1]. It is also responsible for overall investment management, including approving, authorising and reviewing major projects within the authority set by the State Council ^[2].

Its current duties further include leading the supply-side structural reform, improving the business environment and coordinating the negative list for market access ^[2]. On the external side, it proposes strategies, plans and aggregate-balance policies for using foreign capital and investing overseas, and leads implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative ^[2].

Balance of aggregates is the thread running through this list. In practice it means keeping the large totals consistent with one another — how much investment the economy can absorb, where the financing for it comes from, how prices move — rather than deciding individual prices or individual loans. A department organised this way works mainly through plans, totals and project lists, which is why so many of its duties are phrased as drafting, proposing or approving.

Where it sits in the system

Two features of the mandate are worth holding together. First, the commission both drafts plans and administers project approval, so the point at which a plan turns into a concrete project usually passes through it ^[1][2]. Second, its relation to fiscal and monetary policy is one of participation rather than decision: it analyses fiscal and financial conditions and takes part in formulating those policies, while the instruments themselves sit with the bodies that hold them ^[1].

The functions absorbed in the 2003 reorganisation also carry through to the present mandate, which covers the business environment, the negative list for market access and supply-side structural reform alongside the older planning and investment work ^[1][2]. Reading the commission's two self-descriptions side by side is therefore useful: one states the general purpose — studying and drafting economic and social policy, balancing aggregates, guiding system reform ^[1] — and the other lists the specific tasks through which that purpose is carried out, from annual plans and industrial policy to major project review and overseas investment ^[1][2].