Ten years later, policy is still the number one driving force for commercial aerospace. From 2015 to 2025, China’s commercial aerospace industry has achieved a transition from “icebreaking” to “explosion”. One of the strongest driving forces behind this is the two-wheel drive of national top-level design and local institutional innovation. In 2025, we are entering a new stage – policy dividends shift from “open door and release” to “structural optimization”, and local investment promotion shifts from “racing to build momentum” to “high-quality agglomeration.” Based on the Nihao Space commercial aerospace database, this article systematically sorts out and evaluates nearly a hundred national and local policies, presenting a panoramic view of commercial aerospace policies in 2025, as well as the gains and losses of the local investment boom.
01
National policy: from “liberal access” to “systematic governance”
In the past ten years, China’s commercial aerospace policy has gone through three stages: 1. Ice-breaking stage (2014–2018): liberalizing access and encouraging the entry of social capital. For example, the “Guiding Opinions on Innovating Investment and Financing Mechanisms to Encourage Social Investment in Key Areas” and the “National Civil Space Infrastructure Medium and Long-term Development Plan (2015-2025)” encourage social capital to enter the commercial aerospace field. 2. Standardization stage (2019–2022): Focus on safety supervision and quality system. For example, the “Notice on Promoting the Orderly Development of Commercial Launch Vehicles”, “Notice on Promoting the Orderly Development of Microsatellites”, and “Measures for International Cooperation of National Civilian Satellite Remote Sensing Data” clarify “safety boundaries” and “compliant exports”. 3. Acceleration stage (2023–2025): Infrastructure and ecological policies are concentrated. For example, the “Domestic Coordination Management Measures for Satellite Networks (Interim)” clearly improves the allocation of frequency and orbit resources; the “Regulations on the Management of Direct-Connect Satellite Services for Terminal Equipment” aims to promote the integration of satellite communications and terminal equipment; and the “Guiding Opinions on Optimizing Business Access to Promote the Development of the Satellite Communications Industry” proposes for the first time a quantitative goal of over 10 million satellite communications users. As of October 2025, a systematic policy framework covering rockets, satellites, measurement and control, frequency, communications, quality, safety and other aspects has been formed at the national level. Among them, representative core policies include: Generally speaking, national policies are transforming from the “project approval system” to the “market access + safety supervision system”, and the focus is shifting from “encouraging entry” to “ensuring orderliness, optimizing resources, and guiding capital”, that is, from “allowing it to be done” to “how to do it well and do it quickly.” Commercial aerospace will gradually be incorporated into the backbone of the country’s future industrial system.
02
Local policies: policy density reaches record high
According to incomplete statistics, as of October 2025, 15 provinces have introduced special commercial aerospace policies, and the total scale of 20 aerospace funds exceeds 480 billion yuan. The directions of local commercial aerospace policies are mainly divided into three categories: (1) “Industrial cluster type” – represented by: Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, and Guangdong. The core of policies in such regions is to build a full-industry chain aerospace industry cluster covering R&D, manufacturing, launch, operation, and application. For example, Beijing proposed to build a “South Arrow and North Star” industrial pattern in the “Beijing Action Plan to Accelerate the Development of Commercial Aerospace Innovation (2024-2028)”; Shanghai proposed in the “Shanghai Action Plan to Promote Commercial Aerospace Development and Create a Space Information Industry Highland (2023-2025)” to form a space information industry highland with a scale of 200 billion yuan by 2025. (2) “Characteristic breakthrough type” – Representatives: Chongqing, Hunan, Jiangsu, Hubei, Shaanxi, Jilin. Focus on “differentiated development” and achieve breakthroughs by focusing on subdivided tracks. For example, Chongqing proposed the construction of a satellite Internet innovation center and an “air-space-ground” integrated system in “Chongqing’s Several Policies and Measures to Support the Application of Air and Space Information and Industrial Development”; Hunan’s “Several Policies and Measures to Accelerate the Large-scale Application of Beidou in Hunan Province” promoted the large-scale application of Beidou to promote the upgrading of terminal manufacturing and service systems. (3) “Investment-driven” – Representatives: Anhui, Henan, Shandong, Heilongjiang, Fujian This type of policy focuses on introducing projects, replenishing and extending the chain, and rapidly expanding the industrial scale through financial incentives, implementation support and fund guidance. For example, Shandong proposed in “Several Measures to Accelerate the High-Quality Development of the Commercial Aerospace Industry in Shandong Province” to support the construction of “satellite applications + AI”, and a single enterprise can receive up to 5 million yuan in subsidies. There are also three trends emerging in the development of local commercial aerospace: 1) The pattern of “Strength in the East and Gathering in the West” is emerging: the east focuses on manufacturing and applications, while the west focuses on components and upstream technologies. 2) “Provincial top-level design + municipal-level special policies” has become the mainstream path. 3) Local aerospace industry funds have entered the actual investment stage, moving from the “declaration period” to the “implementation period”.
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The “gains” and “loses” of local investment promotion
The enthusiasm of local governments for attracting investment has indeed led to the rapid gathering of the commercial aerospace industry. However, behind the craze of “go big and go fast”, there are also hidden structural worries caused by “rapid development”. 1. The “gain” of investment promotion – three effective practices 1) Establishing industrial funds: replacing traditional cash subsidies with “investment promotion and capital-driven enterprises” to bind enterprises to long-term implementation, share benefits and risks. 2) Build an aerospace industrial park: concentrate on rocket manufacturing, satellite development and other links, provide hardware supporting facilities, and form an industrial chain agglomeration effect. 3) Set up a special investment class: In view of the characteristics of commercial aerospace as a “high-tech sensitive industry”, we will provide “one enterprise, one policy” precise services to improve the efficiency and stickiness of investment. 2. “Loss” in investment promotion – four major hidden worries. During the investment promotion process, some regions also revealed that projects are “hot for signing, but slow for construction”, with low project implementation rates; insufficient industrial chain coordination, “isolated implementation”; emphasis on investment promotion but not operation, lack of continuous support; disordered competition among localities, leading to “valuation bubbles.” In short, the “gain” lies in policy enthusiasm, and the “loss” lies in ecological construction. Local investment promotion is shifting from “speed of investment promotion” to “quality of implementation”, and the next round of competition will be “who can build a complete industrial ecological closed loop first.”
04
Local commercial aerospace policies and investment recommendations
In the next five years, China’s local commercial aerospace policies need to move from “policy competition” to “ecological collaboration.” Nihao Space recommends that local governments focus on the following eight points: 1) Shift from “subsidy-oriented” to “demand-oriented”: use more funds for pilot procurement, demonstration projects and subsidies for small and medium-sized enterprises, rather than simply subsidizing enterprise registration or factory buildings. 2) Differentiated positioning based on resource endowment: places with launch sites focus on “upstream + launch testing”; coastal/port cities develop “maritime/ocean remote sensing/maritime data”; large agricultural provinces focus on “remote sensing + agricultural applications”. 3) Establish a local satellite data open platform: Open local satellite/remote sensing data to enterprises/universities according to rules, pilot free disclosure of indicator data packages, and lower the threshold for entrepreneurship. 4) Industrial funds should invest “scenario-oriented” and exit based on implementation conditions: promote funds to be linked to local procurement or pilot projects, guide invested companies to participate in local scenario applications, and form a closed business loop. 5) Establish a “commercial aerospace special class + one-window service”: Establish a cross-departmental coordination mechanism (development and reform/industry and information technology/land/maritime/civil affairs/taxation, etc.) to provide integrated services such as rapid land use and green channels for approval. 6) Promote the in-depth integration of industry, academia and research and the sharing of testing resources: establish a shared test bench, ground station reservation system and open time slots to reduce R&D and testing costs for small and medium-sized enterprises. 7) Focus on long-term talent and supply chain training: Targeted training of engineers and operation and maintenance talents, support localized production of key components, and improve the level of independent control of the industrial chain. 8) Strengthen international cooperation and compliance support: Provide enterprises with consultation and guidance on international rules, export controls, etc., to help enterprises “go global” safely. In the past ten years, China’s commercial aerospace has “opened the ceiling” through policies; in the next decade, whether it can achieve steady and long-term progress depends on whether local governments can build a truly closed industrial loop. The policy focus will shift from “laying the track” to “setting benchmarks”, and from “casting a wide net” to “building an ecology intensively.” Long press the QR code to download “China’s Commercial Space Policy Summary 2014-2025”
