Visitors view an aircraft at the low-altitude economy and artificial intelligence pavilion of the 5th China-Mongolia Expo in Hohhot, North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on August 26, 2025. Photo: VCG
The Chinese economy, navigating a complex external environment, has maintained solid growth momentum in August, with highlights in consumption and high-tech investment, demonstrating strong resilience and vitality, official data showed on Monday.
Key indicators for August, including industrial production, gross retail sales, investment and foreign trade volume, kept on improving, and employment stayed generally stable, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Industrial production rose 5.2 percent year-on-year in August, latest NBS data revealed, with the high-tech manufacturing industry leading other sectors with 9.3 percent growth. Fixed-asset investment increased 0.5 percent year-on-year in the first eight months of 2025.
Meanwhile, consumer spending, a priority on the government’s economic work agenda this year, continued to gain momentum. Retail sales of consumer goods grew 3.4 percent year-on-year to 3.97 trillion yuan ($556.77 billion) in August, official data showed Monday, while retail sales of services expanded by 5.1 percent in the January-August period.
The economic data for August, having slowed down from that of July, was in part driven by a high base factor last year, but still demonstrated progress in high-tech manufacturing and consumption, Chinese analysts said, noting the possibility of more supportive measures to be rolled out in the remaining months of the year.
Fundamentals unchanged
NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui said the overall economy in August was stable, with steady progress made in industrial transformation and upgrading, while marked achievements were scored in high-quality development with the synergy of the macro policies. Active strengthening of macroeconomic policy adjustment, efforts to develop a unified national market, and focus on promoting domestic circulation were among the driving factors for growth, Fu said.
The spokesperson noted that there are many unstable and uncertain factors in external environment, and China’s national economic development still faces multiple risks and challenges.
However, Fu said that, in the first eight months, key indicators including industrial production, index of services production, gross retail sales and foreign trade growth were steady compared with a month earlier. The trend of generally stable economic growth remains unchanged, said Fu.
In particular, a package of pro-growth government policies to boost domestic consumption, such as the consumer goods trade-in project and equipment upgrading program, have helped accelerate economic growth, according to NBS.
The production of 3D printers, new-energy vehicles and industrial robots surged 40.4 percent, 22.7 percent and 14.4 percent in August, respectively.
Manufacturing investment increased by 5.1 percent year-on-year in the first eight months, significantly faster than that of overall investment growth, while investment in equipment and tools grew by 14.4 percent year-on-year.
Retail sales of travel consulting and rental services, transportation services, and cultural, sports and leisure services all posted relatively fast growth, according to the NBS data.
Employment was generally stable. In August, the urban surveyed unemployment rate came in at 5.3 percent, 0.1 percentage points higher than that of the previous month but still within the annual ceiling of around 5.5 percent.
Analysts said the development of new quality productive forces continues to inject growth momentum into the Chinese economy during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), underlining China’s institutional advantage in economic planning.
Wang Qing, chief macroeconomic analyst at Golden Credit Rating International, told the Global Times on Monday that a high base from last year, when the government introduced large-scale equipment upgrade and consumer goods trade-in programs, were behind the slowdown in industrial output and retail sales growth in August.
Still, the robust growth in high-tech investment has underlined the driving effect of the development of new quality productive forces on economic growth, Wang said.
“Furthermore, the economic growth momentum will shift to the services industry, marking a significant difference between this year’s economic growth structure and last year’s,” Wang predicted, noting the index of services production was better than that of industrial output growth.
More supportive measures
The August data came as China gears up for the impending eight-day combined National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays, a peak period for travel and consumption, with the state railway operator predicting a total of 219 million trips to be made between September 29 to October 10 on Monday.
As August data has suggested more downward pressure, more supportive policies may be in the pipeline in the remaining months of the year to tap potential in consumption and investment, Chinese analysts said.
According to the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee held at the end of July, which set the tone for the country’s economic policy approach in the second half of the year, macro policies should be intensified in a sustained and timely manner. It urged the rigorous implementation of a more proactive fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy to strengthen their effectiveness, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
Sun Chuanwang, a professor at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Monday that the August data has underlined that the foundation for economic recovery and improvement still needs to be consolidated, with more efforts to drive scientific and technological innovation and boost consumption, as well as cultivate new quality productive forces and effectively release the potential of domestic demand.
“The importance of maintaining policy continuity and stability in the second half of the year now becomes more prominent,” Sun said. “It is also necessary to enhance the flexibility and predictability of policies, so as to fully release policies’ effects in the future.”
“With a focus on stabilizing macroeconomic growth and the job market, we predict that new incremental macroeconomic policy measures are likely to be introduced in the fourth quarter,” Wang said.
Core elements may include increased fiscal stimulus, central bank interest rate cuts, and greater efforts to stabilize the real estate market. This will pave the way for the country to be on track to achieve its annual economic growth target of around 5.0 percent, according to Wang.
China has set a full-year economic growth target of around 5 percent this year. In the first half, the country’s gross domestic product grew 5.3 percent year-on-year.