On Oct. 19, China released its third-quarter economic report card: GDP for the first three quarters reached 107.1071 trillion yuan, up 4.6 percent year on year at constant prices. The BBC, Reuters and others described growth as accelerating and exceeding expectations, while the Financial Times quoted industry analysts as saying new quality productive forces, especially advanced manufacturing, are playing an increasingly important role.
Amid a complex international environment, China's economy has held steady this year, showing new momentum and an improving structure and laying a good foundation for achieving the full-year target in the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period.
Pan Yuanyuan, a researcher at the National Institute for Global Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said China has advanced high-quality development, developed new quality productive forces suited to local conditions, implemented a more proactive macro policy and strengthened coordination between existing and incremental policies, while major projects have broken ground.
The report card shows four highlights: stable operation, new momentum, better structure and improved quality and efficiency. Growth of 4.6 percent is in line with the annual target and ranks among the fastest major economies, with an economic increment of 5.7 trillion yuan -- the largest for the period in five years.
In the third quarter, when Middle East conflict pushed up crude prices and weighed on the global economy, China's growth still picked up by 0.2 percentage points from the second quarter.
In the first three quarters, industrial output above designated size rose 5.3 percent, retail sales of goods and services grew 2.6 percent and consumer prices rose 0.9 percent, with most indicators trending upward.
Domestic demand played a leading role, contributing more than 70 percent of growth, of which final consumption expenditure accounted for nearly 50 percent. Lillian Li, China president of Coach, said the Chinese market is one of the world's most dynamic and innovative consumer markets and a key pillar of the company's global strategy, with double-digit revenue growth in China for several consecutive quarters.
Anna, president of Henkel Greater China, said the company remains highly optimistic about the Chinese market after 55 years in the country and will continue to participate deeply in the high-quality development of China's industrial and consumer sectors.
New drivers represented by high-end manufacturing, the digital and intelligent economy and modern services continued to contribute more than 40 percent of growth, with high-tech manufacturing and digital product manufacturing accelerating -- a sign that the baton of growth is passing further to new momentum.
