Industrial, tech advancements drive growth at start of 2025: expert

Industrial and technological advancements spurred China's economic growth in the first two months of 2025, as recovering domestic demand and robust exports boosted the industrial and service sectors, an economist said on Monday.

China's value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, went up 5.9 percent year on year in the first two months of 2025, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Monday.

The NBS data also shows that the Index of Services Production grew by 5.6 percent year on year in the first two months, 0.4 percentage points faster than that of 2024.

Shi Fanqi, assistant professor at Peking University's School of Economics, told China Media Group (CMG) that the industrial sector's growth stemmed from a rebound in domestic and foreign demand.

"I think actually there are different reasons behind the growth for the industry sector and the service sector. For the industrial sector, I think it's mostly driven by the demand side. So as we all know, especially for the past few years, China has very strong production capacity, but consumption was relatively weak. But now for the first two months we see that there is government subsidy to consumer demand. So, that means the domestics demand is actually picking up. And also for the first two months we have a relatively or generally stable global environment. And then we also see a pickup in foreign demand. Actually the growth in export for the first two months was more than 3 percent. So, we see the demand side, with the rise of the demand side, then we can also see growth in the industrial (sector), because the supply is meant to meet the demand. So that's for the growth in the industrial sector," he said.

For the service sector, high-tech industries, particularly information transmission, software, and IT services, led the way with a 9.3 percent growth rate. Leasing and business services, wholesale and retail, and finance also saw significant increases of 8.8 percent, 5.6 percent, and 5.5 percent, respectively, according to the NBS data.

"For the growth of the service sector, it's actually mostly driven by technology advancements. So to see that, we see that the average growth for the service sector is like 5.6 percent. But the highest growth is witnessed in sectors in high-tech industries and in particular, information transmission and information technology. So, that means that recent technological advancements, in particular development in AI, is very key to that growth," Shi said.

Shi noted that the dual-track growth in both sectors reflects China's ability to leverage its production capacity, technological innovation, and policy support to navigate global economic challenges.

Industrial, tech advancements drive growth at start of 2025: expert

A pitch event for the third China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) was held in Milan, Italy on Tuesday, with more than 200 representatives of trade promotion institutions, business associations and enterprises from the two countries in attendance.

The event, also an economic and trade forum between China and Italy, witnessed the signing of multiple cooperation documents.

Italian business representatives said Italy and China have always maintained solid relations, and Italian companies cannot develop without the Chinese market.

Through important cooperation platforms such as the CISCE, the two sides will build a closer partnership in industrial and chain supply chains and make greater contributions to promoting economic and trade cooperation between Italy and China and between Europe and China, they said.

"We get together here to promote the further development of bilateral relations and serve those companies that carry out bilateral exchanges between China and Italy. We also take this opportunity to promote the China International Supply Chain Expo. I believe this will help promote friendly exchanges between the two countries," said Mario Boselli, president of the Italy China Council Foundation.

The third China International Supply Chain Expo will be held in Beijing from July 16 to 20 this year, according to the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, its organizer.

With a total exhibition area of 120,000 square meters, the expo features six major exhibition areas, namely, advanced manufacturing, clean energy, smart vehicles, digital technology, healthy living and green agriculture.

As the world's first national-level exhibition focusing on supply chains, the expo is an internationally shared public product. First held in 2023, the expo has contributed to building more secure, stable, open and inclusive global industrial and supply chains.

Pitch event held in Milan to promote 3rd China Int'l Supply Chain Expo