China's Xi meets with private business leaders in Beijing

Xi Jinping attends private enterprise symposium amid economic challenges and U.S. tensions, boosting tech shares in Hong Kong.

China’s President Xi Jinping has attended a symposium on private enterprises, official news agency Xinhua said on Monday (February 17, 2025), a rare move that comes as Beijing grapples with a slowing economy and growing tensions with the United States.

The Xinhua report said Mr. Xi delivered a speech after listening to representatives of private companies. The report did not provide any details about the symposium, held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, including who the attendees were from private enterprises.

Reuters reported on Friday (February 14, 2025), citing sources, Mr. Xi planned to chair a symposium to boost private sector sentiment on Monday (February 17, 2025) that would be attended by the country’s business leaders, including Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma.

“The symposium would be aimed at boosting private-sector sentiment, and Mr. Xi was expected to encourage company chiefs to expand their businesses domestically and internationally amid an intensifying China-U.S. technology war,” the sources had said.

Mr. Xi first chaired a high-profile symposium for the private sector in 2018, six years after he came to power. At the time, he pledged tax cuts and a level playing field while reaffirming that private firms would have access to financial backing.

The symposium also comes as DeepSeek’s AI platform has triggered investor speculation about its potential to buoy China’s broader tech sector, leading to calls for an upward repricing of Chinese assets.

Mr. Xi has long stressed the need for China to achieve self-sufficiency in semiconductors and wants the country to use AI to drive economic development.