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The National Bureau of Statistics released figures on July 15 showing gross domestic product rose 4.3 percent in the April-June period from a year earlier. That represented a slowdown from the first quarter’s 5.0 percent expansion and came in below the 4.5 percent median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists. The reading also fell short of the lower end of Beijing’s 4.5 percent to 5.0 percent target for the full year, according to the official data. For the first half of 2026, GDP growth stood at 4.7 percent, the statistics bureau reported.
Retail sales advanced 1.0 percent in June while industrial output grew 5.3 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said in its release. Property investment contracted 18 percent year-on-year in the first six months, continuing a slump that has weighed on household wealth and construction employment since 2021. These indicators illustrated the persistent gap between robust manufacturing supply and subdued domestic demand that has come to characterise the recovery.
A Reuters dispatch from Beijing noted that economists view the composition of growth as a greater concern than the headline pace. Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said the government appears reluctant to expand the fiscal deficit and accumulate more debt ahead of the Politburo meeting at the end of July. “There is a general consensus among policymakers and researchers that China needs to boost domestic demand. But there is no consensus how to do it,” Zhang added.
Jane Hou, who runs a European goods importing business in eastern China, said her income had roughly halved since the beginning of the year as sales declined. She noted that an apartment she rents out had been vacant for more than six months, reflecting the country’s housing oversupply. “Apart from necessary spending on food, I save on anything I can,” Hou said. “I haven’t bought a single piece of clothing in six months.”
Emma Cheng, a 28-year-old nurse in Guilin in one of China’s fiscally weaker provinces, said her income “has fallen off a cliff” as the local medical sector suffered from underfunding. Wages have been sluggish or declining in some sectors amid industrial overcapacity, price wars and layoffs in factories, the National Bureau of Statistics data indicated through related metrics. Tens of millions of people have moved from formal employment into the gig economy with longer hours, lower pay and limited social protections, according to the Reuters report.
Exports surged 27 percent in June, supported by global demand for artificial intelligence-related goods and front-loading ahead of possible tariff hikes, separate trade data published a day earlier showed. A universal 10 percent US tariff imposed in February expires on July 24 and is expected to be succeeded by higher duties, the dispatch stated. A central bank official described current monetary conditions as relatively loose while pledging additional measures to support domestic demand.
The International Monetary Fund has projected 4.4 percent growth for China in 2026 as a whole.[[1]](https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/china-gdp/) This outlook follows the latest readings that Morgan Stanley revised downward to 4.6 percent from 4.8 percent. The second-quarter slowdown marked the weakest performance since the fourth quarter of 2022, according to an analysis of official figures by Trading Economics.
