Guangzhou (JLC), March 17, 2025--China achieved steady economic growth in the first two months of 2025, with key indicators improving, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The value added by China's industry--a gauge of activity in the manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors – grew 5.9% year on year in January-February, accelerating by 0.1 percentage points from the growth in the whole year of 2024, the NBS data shows.
The service sector continued to improve, with the service production index rising 5.6% year on year, speeding by 0.4 percentage points from the growth through 2024, the data says.
The retail sales of goods, a key measurement of consumer spending, gained 4.0% year on year to CNY8.37 trillion in January-February, accelerating by 0.5 percentage points from the growth through 2024, the NBS data indicates.
Fixed-asset investment--a gauge of expenditures on the sectors of infrastructure, property, machinery and equipment--increased 4.1% year on year to CNY5.26 trillion in January-February. Excluding the real estate industry, the growth in fixed-asset investment would be 8.4%.
Investment in infrastructure construction and manufacturing grew 5.6% and 9.0%, respectively, while that in the real estate industry declined 9.8%, according to the NBS data.
China’s exports gained 3.4% year on year to 3.88 trillion yuan in the two months, while its imports went down 7.3% to 2.66 trillion yuan.
Meanwhile, the surveyed urban jobless rate came in at 5.3%. In February alone, the urban unemployment rate was 5.4%, up 0.2 percentage points from January, the NBS data also shows.
