China's Xi Jinping attends symposium on private enterprises

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

The Xinhua report said 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, citing sources, Xi planned to chair a symposium to boost private sector sentiment on Monday that would be attended by the country's business leaders, including Alibaba cofounder Jack Ma.


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

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.

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.

But China's efforts have been hampered by export control measures on chips imposed by Washington which is worried Beijing could use advanced semiconductors to boost its military capabilities.

"It's a tacit acknowledgement that the Chinese government needs private-sector firms for its tech rivalry with the US," said Christopher Beddor, deputy China research director at Gavekal Dragonomics in Hong Kong. "The government has no choice but to support them if it wants to compete with the US"

Tech shares in Hong Kong have roared higher in recent weeks on a combination of optimism about the DeepSeek AI breakthrough and a thawing of authorities' approach to internet giants.

The index hit a three-year high in morning trade on Monday, having rallied on Friday after Reuters reported Xi was to chair Monday's symposium. It was broadly steady shortly after state media reports on his speech on Monday.