BEIJING: China’s economy expanded 4.7 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2026, demonstrating resilience as advanced manufacturing, robust exports and emerging growth drivers helped cushion mounting external uncertainties, official data showed on Wednesday.
New growth drivers accounted for more than two-fifths of economic growth during the period, highlighting the Chinese economy’s continued transition toward innovation-led and consumption-driven development, said officials and experts.
As the economy grew 4.3 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, moderating from 5 percent in the first quarter, experts called for a more forceful policy response to bolster domestic demand and keep the economy on a firmer footing.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s GDP reached 69.57 trillion yuan ($10.3 trillion) in the first half, keeping the economy on track to achieve the government’s full-year growth target range of 4.5 to 5 percent.
“China’s economic performance has remained within an appropriate range in the first half, with new growth drivers gaining momentum,” Mao Shengyong, deputy head of the NBS, said on Wednesday at a news conference in Beijing.
Although growth moderated in the second quarter, the fundamentals supporting stable economic performance remain unchanged, Mao added.
NBS data showed that the industrial sector maintained robust expansion in the first half, with the value added of industrial enterprises above a designated size rising 5.4 percent year-on-year and that of high-tech manufacturing increasing 13.3 percent.
Chen Wenling, a senior researcher at the Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies, said the development of new quality productive forces was providing increasingly strong impetus to the nation’s economic growth.
NBS data indicates a modest recovery in consumption, with retail sales of consumer goods rising 1 percent year-on-year in June, following a 0.6 percent decline in May, and retail sales of services growing 5.3 percent year-on-year in the first half.
That momentum is expected to receive further policy support under a recently approved plan to expand consumption during the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period. It aims to raise the value of total retail sales of consumer goods to around 60 trillion yuan by 2030 and further strengthen consumption’s role as a key driver of economic growth.
Meanwhile, inflation remained moderate as the GDP deflator returned to positive territory. Calculations by China Minsheng Bank showed that China’s GDP deflator — the broadest measure of prices across goods and services — rose to 1.5 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, ending a 12-quarter run of negative readings.
Patrick Zweifel, chief economist at Pictet Asset Management, told China Daily that the Swiss asset manager saw China’s economy as “pretty resilient” in the first half.
External demand has remained strong, with exports and industrial activity performing extremely well, despite domestic demand remaining weak, Zweifel said.
Rogier Janssens, president of Merck China, said the latest figures were consistent with what he has observed on the ground — solid momentum in high-end manufacturing and resilient trade in high-value-added products, trends that signal the arrival of “China Opportunity 2.0”.
“China’s market not only absorbs innovation but accelerates it,” Janssens said, adding that the country serves as a shared growth platform for global businesses.
Marc Princen, global CEO of Mundipharma, a pharmaceutical company specializing in pain management, said that China’s sustained commitment to reform and high-standard opening-up continues to “strengthen market predictability and long-term investment confidence”.
“We have been in China for more than 30 years, and we will continue to be here for decades to come,” Princen added. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
