Text/Duan Xiujian
On October 19, the National Bureau of Statistics released economic data for the first three quarters of this year. Preliminary calculations show that the GDP in the first three quarters was 107.1071 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.6% at constant prices.
Through this report card, we should not only observe the speed of economic growth, but also pay attention to the changes behind the growth. On the same day, China News Agency held the "2026 Mid-Year Economic Situation Analysis Meeting" and invited experts from various fields to conduct analysis and interpretation.
The proportion of investment in intangible assets this year may reach a high point in recent years
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that from January to September, national fixed asset investment was 33.4115 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 7.2%.
Guo Liyan, deputy director and researcher of the Investment Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, said that in the first three quarters, a series of measures to stabilize investment and expand domestic demand have been intensively effective, the investment structure has been further optimized, and quality and efficiency have improved. Although the growth rate of fixed asset investment is still declining, the decline in manufacturing investment has narrowed. Currently, effective investment is more focused on technological innovation, industrial upgrading and laying a solid foundation for playing a key role.
Among them, in the first three quarters, investment in intellectual property products increased by 9.3% year-on-year. In her view, the further expansion of the proportion of intangible asset investment reflects the increasing endogenous innovation driving force that supports high-quality economic development. Looking forward to the whole year this year, the proportion of intangible asset investment should be the highest point in recent years.
Currently, investment in key areas related to the “Six Networks” is accelerating. Guo Liyan said that traditional infrastructure is accelerating its transformation into new infrastructure, and driven by major projects, investment growth is improving. Data show that investments related to major infrastructure networks such as the information transmission industry, air transportation industry, and water transportation industry maintained double-digit growth.
Guo Liyan said that looking forward to the whole year, positive factors and favorable conditions for stabilizing investment will continue to increase, and the synergy of existing policies and incremental policies will be further enhanced.
She said that it is necessary to seize the construction window in the fourth quarter, accelerate the introduction of new policy financial instruments into projects, strengthen up-down linkage, promote the coordinated efforts of various policies, and effectively transform policy effects into physical workload in various fields.
Positive factors for real estate stabilization are accumulating
Wu Jing, director of the Real Estate Research Center of Tsinghua University, pointed out that if combined with the operation of the second-hand housing market and the changes in commercial housing sales prices in 70 large and medium-sized cities released earlier, as well as the formulation, implementation and introduction of a series of new policies in the third quarter, positive factors for the stabilization of the real estate sector are constantly accumulating. Real estate sales area across the country is shifting from mainly incremental to mainly stock, and this change is irreversible.
Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on the 19th showed that from January to September, the area of online second-hand housing transactions was 617.46 million square meters, a year-on-year increase of 10.7%.
"The overall stable transaction size reflects that residents' reasonable housing demand is in the process of continued release, and it also provides support for subsequent stabilization of prices and further improvement in market expectations." Wu Jing said.
In terms of prices, judging from the sales price changes of commercial housing in 70 large and medium-sized cities in September, we can see that the overall price decline is narrowing, both month-on-month and year-on-year. Prices in first-tier cities have shown a series of positive changes, especially the sales prices of second-hand housing in first-tier cities; in addition, the year-on-year decline in housing prices in first-, second- and third-tier cities has generally narrowed.
He said that this also reflects that the momentum of stabilization in the price dimension has further continued.
The rebalancing of supply and demand in the market is also continuing. Wu Jing said that the unsold inventory of commercial housing in many cities and the overall area for sale have simultaneously declined significantly. The number of listings in the second-hand housing market in some major first- and second-tier cities such as Beijing and Wuhan is in the process of falling, which shows that the rebalancing of market supply and demand in the new and second-hand housing markets is moving in a healthier direction.
In addition, significant progress has been made in the construction of a new model of real estate development. Wu Jing said that on August 28, a series of basic documents to build a new model of real estate development were released at the same time. The important basic systems for the new model of real estate development have basically taken shape.
On September 20, the newly revised "Housing Provident Fund Management Regulations" were officially implemented, further broadening the scope of withdrawal and use of provident funds. The interest discount policy for residents' home purchase loans launched on September 29 marks the first time that interest discounts on home purchase loans are implemented at the central level. These policies are gradually forming a synergy from the basic system and the demand side, and are effective in a coordinated manner.
He said: "In the past few years, we have been working on the construction of 'good houses' to make residents 'want to buy a house.' Our new model, which focuses on the sale of existing homes, makes residents 'dare to buy a house.' The improvement of the provident fund system and financial discounts have given residents families a higher and stronger ability to buy a house. Such coherence of policies will help transform potential demand into actual home buying behavior."
AI and its related products provide an important boost to China’s exports
Wu Ge, chief economist of Changjiang Securities, said that among the "troika" driving GDP growth, exports are growing faster and making outstanding contributions. Especially since this year, AI and AI-related products have provided an important boost to China’s exports.
Previously, the customs department announced that in the first three quarters of this year, the total import and export of China's industrial robots, electronic components, computer parts, electrical equipment and other products exceeded 10 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 58.9%, driving overall import and export growth by 11.3 percentage points. During the same period, exports of integrated circuits increased by 99.1% year-on-year, and green products such as electric vehicles, lithium batteries, wind turbines and their parts increased by 72.3%, 36.4%, and 22.4% respectively.
Looking forward to the next one to two years, Wu Ge pointed out that although there are geopolitical uncertainties in the global macro environment, it is still generally conducive to China's manufacturing exports.
He said that from a longer-term perspective, the global manufacturing cycle is not over yet. On the one hand, AI drives growth in computing power and infrastructure investment; on the other hand, countries are still restructuring their industrial chains and spending in related fields is rising, which is expected to continue to support external demand. Overall, the external environment favorable to China's manufacturing exports has not changed.
The highlights and advantages of China’s foreign trade will be further enhanced in the fourth quarter
Overall, in the first three quarters of this year, the total import and export volume of goods was 39,939.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.8%.
A careful analysis by a researcher at the Institute of International Trade and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce showed that from the perspective of total data, the import and export of goods in the first three quarters of this year was nearly 40 trillion, which is close to the foreign trade import and export data for the whole year of 2022. The growth rate is so fast that it is relatively rare among the world's major economies. In the past few years, the speed of China's foreign trade development shows that the complementary trade relations between various countries and China are strengthening, which has also brought more strong support to the economic growth of various countries.
Looking at import and export separately, in the first three quarters, exports were 23,197.9 billion yuan, an increase of 16.4%; imports were 16,742 billion yuan, an increase of 22.3%.
He believes that import growth has been faster than exports for many consecutive quarters. The scale of China's imports has been limited to the United States in terms of magnitude. In terms of incremental growth, the gap between the two countries is also narrowing. This shows that China is not only willing to share the super large market, but it is actually happening, bringing benefits to all countries.
In terms of business entities and industrial fields, in the first three quarters, my country's private enterprises imported and exported 22.73 trillion yuan, an increase of 19.1%, accounting for 56.9% of the total foreign trade value, and continued to maintain their position as the largest foreign trade entity. Exports of mechanical and electrical products increased by 23.7%, accounting for 64.3% of total exports.
"The growth vitality of private enterprises is very outstanding," Zhou Mi said. More and more private enterprises are participating in international trade and gaining space for their own development from international trade, which has also brought more vitality to international trade.
In Zhou Mi’s view, exports of mechanical and electrical products are growing rapidly, essentially because countries need Chinese mechanical and electrical products, and Chinese mechanical and electrical products can bring them more support. Accounting for more than 60% of exports, "it shows that we have very deep mutually beneficial relationships with many countries in the field of vertical industries."
Zhou Mi believes that the highlights and advantages of China's foreign trade in the first three quarters will be further enhanced in the fourth quarter. From manufacturing, services to technical cooperation, China's foreign trade development will be supported by stronger momentum in the fourth quarter.
Economic policy is shifting from short-term stimulus to long-term system construction
Lu Liping, a professor at the School of Finance at Renmin University of China and deputy director of the China Banking Research Center, noted that at the demand level, export performance was outstanding, but total retail sales of consumer goods and fixed asset investment were weak; in terms of price, the PPI (Industrial Producer Price Index) rose 5% year-on-year in September, C PI (Consumer Price Index) rose by 0.9% year-on-year, which means that "price changes on the production side are not fully transmitted to the consumer side"; in terms of growth momentum, the added value of high-tech manufacturing increased by 16.7% year-on-year in August, and real estate investment fell by 19.9% from January to August. The old and new drivers are clearly hot and cold.
Specifically, the foreign trade structure continues to be optimized. In the first three quarters, my country's exports of goods trade increased by 16.4%. The equipment manufacturing industry contributed nearly 90% of the export increase. China's own brands accounted for 24.8%. Export products were transformed into mid-to-high-end products. The consumption structure is differentiated, with communication equipment growing rapidly, gold, silver, jewelry and home furnishing retail sales weakening, and National Day tourism consumption picking up, laying the foundation for subsequent consumption.
"The total amount of investment is shrinking." Lu Liping said, but investment in intellectual property products and high-tech industries has maintained a rapid growth rate. It can be said that there is a general trend of growth in investment in new productivity. On the corporate side, profits of industrial enterprises above designated size across the country increased by 15.7% from January to August. "Profits have been created, but they exist in the form of accounts receivable, which puts a certain amount of pressure on the cash flow of enterprises."
Lu Liping believes that fiscal and monetary policies will work together, and at the same time, the focus of policy is changing, "from short-term stimulus to long-term system construction and mechanism construction." The fiscal policy will increase countercyclical adjustments and monetary policy will remain moderately loose; institutional measures will be introduced around new productivity, income distribution, social security, and consumption tax reform to take into account both short-term stable growth and medium- and long-term development.
The development of China's new productive forces is impressive
Wang Jiaqiang, a senior researcher at the Bank of China Research Institute, said that based on the economic data of the first three quarters, it can be observed that the development of my country's new productive forces is impressive.
Based on economic data, the "three new" economy will account for nearly 20% of GDP this year, the real estate and construction industries will account for close to 10%, and the contribution rate of new driving forces to economic growth will exceed 40%.
Looking around the world, AI is becoming the core engine of a new round of technological change, and the cross-integration of digital, energy, biological and other technologies is reshaping economic logic. "China has two outstanding advantages in innovation and green development. Europe has outstanding green development but low innovation, and the United States has strong innovation but weak green development." Wang Jiaqiang pointed out that many of my country's innovation indicators rank among the best in the world, and open source large models, new energy, and new energy vehicles have achieved a leap from following to running alongside and leading.
Driven by AI, in the short term, it relies on investment in computing power and data centers to drive demand, and in the long term, it penetrates the entire industry chain as a general-purpose technology and improves total factor productivity. However, there is a lag period in supply-side release, and there are also potential risks such as asset bubbles.
He also reminded that there are multiple challenges in reality: new kinetic energy has not completely replaced the old kinetic energy, and some industries are insufficient in size; there are shortcomings in key technologies such as precision instruments and high-end chips; some regions blindly launch emerging projects to prevent the risk of overcapacity, etc.
Wang Jiaqiang suggested that the monetary and financial environment should be strengthened at the macro level; industrial policies should take into account the cultivation of emerging industries and the support of traditional industries, leaving room for trial and error; system reforms should be used to deal with the derivative risks brought by AI, and safeguard the stability and long-term development of new productivity.
