Abstract: Strengthening the foundation of the real economy is conducive to accelerating Chinese modernization. New quality productive forces serve as a dual-link connecting “investment in people” and “investment in physical capital”, thus bringing opportunities for efficiency transformation in real economy development. Based on city-level panel data, this paper explores the impact of new quality productive forces on real economic efficiency and deconstructs the mechanisms from the perspective of modern economic system construction. The study finds that new quality productive forces play a supportive role in solidifying the foundation of real economy development, with three mechanisms driving this effect: expanding domestic demand, promoting digital industry agglomeration, and strengthening international cooperation. Meanwhile, the “new quality” attribute embodies deep implications of advancing productive forces through path creation, an effect that may be influenced by the “new window of opportunity” arising from institutional changes. From the perspective of economic endowment conditions, new quality productive forces can empower real economic efficiency to a greater extent in cities located in China’s eastern region, with developed private economies, and obvious trade competitive advantages—this represents the supportive force released by expanded opportunity windows. From the perspective of factor market development conditions, labor allocation distortion weakens this empowering effect to some extent, as the narrowing opportunity windows releases resistance. Additionally, the foundation-strengthening effect of new quality productive forces on real economy development exhibits significant spatial spillover characteristics. Economic management authorities should unswervingly foster new quality productive forces and smooth multiple pathways for their organic alignment with the real economy; policy orientation consistency between new quality productive forces and the construction of a modernized economic system should be reinforced, with expanding domestic demand, promoting the agglomeration of the digital industry, and strengthening international cooperation taken as key directions for empowerment. Furthermore, the dynamism of the private economy and institution-led opening-up should be continuously unlocked, labor allocation optimized, and—anchored in regional integration—the synergies of real economy development across different regions supported.

Key words: new quality productive forces, real economy efficiency, modernized economic system, path creation