On October 9, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Developing New Quality Productive Forces", explicitly proposing to "promote the healthy and orderly development of the low-altitude economy and commercial aerospace under the premise of ensuring safety". This statement not only affirms the strategic position of the low-altitude economy as a typical representative of new quality productive forces, but also sets a clear direction for industrial development by taking "safety" as the prerequisite and "healthy and orderly" as the benchmark.
However, Beijing's recently revised "Provisions of Beijing Municipality on the Management of Unmanned Aircraft" will take effect on November 15. The provisions clearly stipulate that the entire administrative region of Beijing is a controlled airspace for unmanned aircraft, and all outdoor flight activities require an application; taking actual conditions into comprehensive consideration, the provisions specify that dedicated flight sites can be designated for flight activities with specific needs.
Places such as Hangzhou, Tianhe District in Guangzhou, Shaoxing, and Guangming District in Shenzhen have also successively abolished or suspended direct subsidy policies for the low-altitude economy. On one hand, there is the strategic tone set at the central level; on the other hand, there is the "tightening" and "subsidy withdrawal" of local policies. Has the low-altitude economy encountered a "sudden brake"?
Safety is the Bottom Line, Not the Opposite
Beijing's city-wide no-fly policy is often interpreted by the outside world as a "negation" of the low-altitude economy. But in fact, as the capital, Beijing's low-altitude security faces more complex challenges.
While strictly controlling, the newly revised provisions still reserve guarantee channels for special needs such as counter-terrorism and stability maintenance, emergency rescue and disaster relief, teaching and scientific research, and agricultural and forestry production.
The controlled airspace for unmanned aircraft in the capital region, officially put into use on September 20, 2026, has a radius of about 300 kilometers and is under strict control across the entire area. Only flights in statutory special scenarios can be approved. This is not a negation of the low-altitude economy, but an adherence to the bottom line of safety. As clarified by the Low-Altitude Economy Development Department of the National Development and Reform Commission with the three major goals of "managing well, flying steadily, and using flexibly", safety is always the prerequisite for "taking off".
In addition, the abolition of the "Several Measures to Support the High-Quality Development of the Low-Altitude Economy" in Hangzhou and other places is essentially an institutional cleanup conducted in accordance with the "Measures of Zhejiang Province for the Management of Administrative Normative Documents", because it conflicts with higher-level laws and fair competition review requirements. The deeper logic lies in this: when the industry moves from the cultivation stage to the stage of large-scale application, what enterprises really need is no longer "settlement rewards", but airspace where they can fly, scenarios that can be run through, and business models that can balance the books. Unilateral continuous subsidies, in the absence of economic benefits support, exactly overdraft the future of the industry.
Accelerated Construction of the Low-Altitude Economy Institutional Framework
In December 2024, the National Development and Reform Commission established the Low-Altitude Economy Development Department; in May 2026, the Low-Altitude Safety Department of the Civil Aviation Administration of China was officially unveiled—one managing development and the other managing safety, marking that the low-altitude economy has specialized management institutions and division of responsibilities; on September 8, 2026, the Unmanned Aircraft Division was established under the Second Equipment Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, specifically responsible for the management of the unmanned aircraft industry. On July 1, 2026, the newly revised "Civil Aviation Law" officially came into effect, writing the expression of "low-altitude economy" into the national legal level for the first time, and adding a special chapter on "Development Promotion". After the new round of national airworthy airspace adjustment was implemented, more than 20 provinces announced the new scope of airworthy airspace. The proportion of airworthy airspace in Hunan jumped from 43% to 75.5%, Sichuan reached 80%, and Shenzhen achieved normalized city-wide opening of low-altitude areas below 120 meters.
Data is the most powerful illustration. Data from the National Development and Reform Commission shows that the market size of the low-altitude economy is expected to exceed CNY 1 trillion in 2026, and is expected to reach CNY 3.5 trillion by 2035. By the end of 2025, the number of registered unmanned aircraft in the whole industry reached 3.287 million, a year-on-year increase of 51%; the cumulative flight hours throughout the year reached 45.3 million hours, a year-on-year increase of nearly 70%. On the capital side, a total of 255 financing events occurred in China's low-altitude economy track in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 71%, with companies such as Volante obtaining huge financing. On the overseas expansion side, China supplies 80% of the complete machines and components in the global civil small and medium-sized unmanned aircraft market, and the export volume increased from CNY 12.071 billion in 2022 to CNY 22.317 billion in 2025.
The "cooling down" of the low-altitude economy is essentially a structural adjustment—shifting from policy-driven to institution-driven, from subsidy incentives to market validation, and from extensive expansion to safe and orderly development. The expression of "under the premise of ensuring safety" in central documents is not a restriction, but fastening a "safety belt" for the industry to go steadily and far. Just as industries such as new energy vehicles and high-speed railways have experienced their "darkest moments", the low-altitude economy can only truly achieve the leap from "policy heat" to "commercial closed-loop" in the dynamic balance of safety and development, becoming a powerful engine for new quality productive forces.
Managing Editor/Layout: Sun Tian
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