Guangzhou (JLC), September 15, 2025--China's key economic indicators suggested that the economy grew steadily in August 2025, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
China's value-added industrial output - a gauge of activity in the manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors - increased by 5.2% year on year and by 0.37% month on month in August. In the first eight months, the industrial output gained 6.2% from a year before.
The service sector continued to expand in the month, with the service production index growing 5.6% year on year, the NBS data showed. In January-August, the index mounted 5.9% from the same period last year.
Meanwhile, retail sales of goods, a key measurement of consumer spending, rose 3.4% year on year to 3.97 trillion yuan in August, slowing down from the 3.7% growth in July. On a month-on-month comparison, the figure in August ticked up by 0.17%. In the first eight months, the retail sales of goods climbed 4.6% year on year to 32.39 trillion yuan.
In yuan terms, the total value of imports and exports of goods stood at about 3.87 trillion yuan in the month, up 3.5% year on year. Among them, exports moved up by 4.8% year on year to 2.30 trillion yuan, and imports swelled by 1.7% to 1.57 trillion yuan.
In January-August, the total value of imports and exports of goods amounted to 29.57 trillion yuan, up 3.5% from the same months last year. Among them, exports increased by 6.9% to 17.61 trillion yuan, while imports decreased by 1.2% to 11.96 trillion yuan.
At the same time, fixed-asset investment - a gauge of expenditures on sectors including infrastructure, property, machinery and equipment - edged up by 0.5% year on year to 32.61 trillion yuan, the NBS data also indicated.
As for the surveyed urban unemployment rate, it averaged out at 5.2% in the period, unchanged from the corresponding period last year. In August alone, the reading came in at 5.3%, a rise of 0.1 percentage points month on month.
