Global Times: China's economic performance will remain within a reasonable range in H2, meet annual goals

Since the beginning of the year, under the firm leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, all regions and departments have taken proactive steps and risen to challenges, effectively responding to various external shocks and internal difficulties while steadily promoting high-quality development. As a result, China's economic performance has shown a trajectory marked by new drivers of growth and an improved structure — achievements that are truly commendable. In the first half of the year, China's major macroeconomic indicators remained broadly stable. The country's GDP grew by 4.7 percent, continuing to rank among the fastest growth rates of the world's major economies. Prices saw a reasonable recovery, employment remained generally stable, and the balance of payments was broadly balanced. Meanwhile, profits of industrial enterprises above designated size rose by 18.7 percent, national general public budget revenue increased by 4.7 percent, and the economic performance of some market entities improved.

China's economy is currently at a critical stage of accelerating the transition from old growth drivers to new ones and transforming its development model. To understand the Chinese economy, it is important to look beyond the pace of growth and avoid focusing too much on fluctuations in individual quarterly or monthly indicators. Greater attention should be paid to the quality of economic performance, including the strength of technological innovation, the upgrading of industries, the sustainability of economic development, and the vitality of businesses. In fact, viewed in terms of quality and efficiency and from a longer-term perspective, profound changes are taking place in the Chinese economy, underscoring its strong resilience and vitality.

New growth drivers China's technological innovation is increasingly translating into industrial competitiveness. Since the beginning of this year, China made a notable technological breakthroughs, including new advances in key and core technologies such as integrated circuits, world-leading progress in innovative drug development, and successful rocket recovery operations both at sea and on land. New growth drivers played a stronger supporting and leading role. In the first six months, the value added of the equipment manufacturing industry grew by 9.3 percent, while that of high-tech manufacturing rose by 13.3 percent, maintaining strong growth momentum. Research, development and applications in areas such as robotics and artificial intelligence also gained momentum, with industrial robots, surgical robots, cleaning robots and bionic robots emerging as representative products of China's intelligent manufacturing.

China's role as a key hub in global industrial and supply chains continues to strengthen. For a new-energy vehicle, an automaker in the Yangtze River Delta can source more than 10,000 parts within four hours, while for a humanoid robot, efficient collaboration among companies in the Pearl River Delta has created a "one-hour industrial ecosystem." Meanwhile, China's exports of intermediate goods have grown rapidly, providing key components for global industrial and supply chains and helping ensure their stable operation. China's complete industrial and supply chain system not only improves production efficiency in China and around the world, but also provides greater certainty for a stable global economic growth.

Chinese enterprises are undergoing transformation and upgrading through digital and intelligent technologies. Some companies have utilized big data to assess market demand and AI algorithms to optimize production scheduling, providing flexible production and customized services to precisely meet the market's needs for small-batch and personalized products. In addition, some companies have connected production lines, logistics centers, and consumer orders seamlessly through digital pro...