BEIJING — China’s statistics bureau reported a third quarter that beat the second, then listed in the same release the places where the money is not going. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday that gross domestic product grew 4.5 percent year on year in July to September, up from 4.3 percent in the second quarter, while fixed-asset investment was down 7.2 percent over the first nine months.
Growth for January to September stands at 4.6 percent, inside the 2026 target of 4.5 to 5 percent that Xinhua reported in May. By TEH’s equal-weight arithmetic of the four quarters (5.0, 4.3, 4.5 and one to come), a fourth quarter near 4.2 percent would still average 4.5 percent, the floor of that range. Quarters are not equally weighted, so that is a rough guide, and the bureau offers no outlook. TEH reported in July that second-quarter growth was the slowest rate since the 2022 lockdowns.
The tension is in the investment lines. Fixed-asset investment, excluding rural households, reached 33.41 trillion yuan, down 7.2 percent, the same decline as in the first eight months. Investment in real estate development fell 20.6 percent and private investment 10.4 percent, and total investment was down 4.2 percent with real estate development deducted.
Households are not filling the gap. Retail sales of consumer goods rose 1.1 percent in nine months while consumer prices rose 0.9 percent, which by TEH’s arithmetic leaves about 0.2 percentage points of growth in goods spending after prices, a rough gauge because the release carries no price-adjusted retail series. The bureau’s own closing assessment says “the issue of insufficient domestic demand remains prominent.” Xinhua reported that NBS deputy head Mao Shengyong called the nine-month figure in line with the annual target.
Trade carried the quarter. Goods imports and exports rose 18.8 percent to 39.94 trillion yuan in nine months, the NBS said, with exports up 16.4 percent at 23.20 trillion yuan and imports up 22.3 percent at 16.74 trillion. By TEH’s subtraction that is a surplus of about 6.46 trillion yuan. September alone came to 5.16 trillion yuan, up 27.5 percent, which TEH reported as the first month above 5 trillion yuan in monthly trade.
Housing sales are weak as well. Sales of newly built commercial buildings fell 13.2 percent by floor space and 13.9 percent by value, and TEH’s count of the NBS city tables found new-home prices fell on the month in 49 of 70 cities.
Producer prices rose 5.0 percent year on year in September, up from the 3.5 percent TEH reported for China’s factory prices in July. The release does not split the 22.3 percent rise in imports between price and volume, so how much of the trade surge reflects dearer goods rather than more of them is not yet known.
