Suzhou's 15th Five-Year Plan targets Digital RMB, promoting financial innovation and application across the entire city

Suzhou is drawing a clear roadmap for the development of digital finance. According to the latest news, the Suzhou Municipal Committee’s “14th Five-Year Plan” proposal explicitly states that the city will expand the innovative application of digital renminbi across all regions and sectors, while also promoting the integration of artificial intelligence and finance, aiming to establish a national key laboratory for digital finance. This plan reflects Suzhou’s systematic approach to digital financial transformation.

Three-Dimensional Simultaneous Promotion of the Digital Finance Strategy

The innovation focus in Suzhou’s “14th Five-Year Plan” for the financial sector can be summarized into three directions:

• Full Coverage of Digital Renminbi: From the phrase “across all regions and sectors,” Suzhou is not pursuing pilot projects but aims for systematic coverage of digital renminbi applications, involving scenarios such as transportation, healthcare, and consumer spending.
• AI Empowering Finance: Promoting pilot applications of “Artificial Intelligence + Finance,” which means Suzhou is exploring AI applications in risk control, investment advisory, payments, and other financial processes.
• Infrastructure Construction: Striving to establish a national key laboratory for digital finance, reflecting a long-term technological and R&D layout.

What Does This Mean?

From a planning perspective, Suzhou’s approach has several characteristics:

Strategic Height. Upgrading digital renminbi applications from pilot projects to systematic promotion across all regions and sectors indicates that Suzhou considers digital finance a core element of its urban competitiveness, rather than marginal innovation.

Strong Synergy. The three directions—digital renminbi, AI finance, and key laboratories—support each other: comprehensive application generates data, data supports AI innovation, and laboratories provide technical guarantees, forming a closed loop.

Clear Benchmarking Intent. The mention of striving for national key laboratories shows that Suzhou aims to compete with other cities for influence and leadership in digital finance. Currently, there are very few national-level laboratories related to digital finance, making this a high-value goal.

Possible Implementation Path

Although the plan still requires detailed implementation rules, based on the logical flow of the statements, Suzhou might proceed as follows:

• Start with government public services and large commercial scenarios to expand the base of digital renminbi usage.
• Simultaneously build pilot applications of AI finance to accumulate experience and data.
• Rely on these practical foundations to qualify for the establishment of a national key laboratory.
• Use the research and development成果 of the laboratory to further improve the application ecosystem.

This path is a progressive layout from application to R&D, which is quite pragmatic.

Summary

Suzhou’s “14th Five-Year Plan” digital finance strategy is not just about a single innovation but a systematic approach. From the full coverage of digital renminbi applications across all regions and sectors, to AI-enabled financial pilots, and the construction of a national key laboratory, it forms a complete chain from application to technology. This reflects an increasing understanding by local governments of the development laws of digital finance and demonstrates Suzhou’s proactive stance in the domestic digital finance competition. The key future point is to observe the specific implementation of these plans between 2026 and 2030.