A series of key indicators released by the State Information Center (SIC) reveal that domestic investment and consumption demand have increased, trade exports have grown steadily, and China's economy is demonstrating a positive and sustained recovery trend.
In the first two months of 2025, the "excavator index," that serves as an indicator of infrastructure development, rise 2.91 percent year on year, indicating infrastructure construction in the fields of farmland water conservancy, forestry, transportation and municipal engineering is expanding.
According to data from the SIC, the contract winning bid amount, a key indicator of investment enthusiasm, increased by 9.2 percent year on year, showing a positive trend in the infrastructure investment sector with ample funding support and accelerated project implementation.
"With the launch of major infrastructure projects, strong investment in railways, highways, energy, and other sectors will boost infrastructure development, thereby better supporting the role of investment in stabilizing growth," said Shen Chunfeng, an expert in engineering machinery index data at ROOTCloud, an industrial internet platform solution provider.
In addition to investment growth, consumption has also continued to rise since the start of the year.
According to data from the SIC, in January and February, the index tracking online service consumption grew by 20.1 percent year on year, while the index for offline consumption increased by 13.6 percent year on year, marking a 7.2 percentage points rise from last December.
In the first two months of this year, the average daily container throughput at major ports in China increased by 12 percent year on year.
"With the concerted efforts of adopted policies and a package of new measures, a number of high-frequency data have shown steady and rapid growth. China's economy has made a strong start in many areas, market confidence has been significantly boosted, and economic recovery has been steadily progressing," said Wei Ying, deputy director of the Big Data Development Department at SIC.
Many leading indicators show China's economy continues to pick up
Chinese stock markets have wrapped up a buoyant first week of 2026, with the Shanghai Composite up close to 3 percent since Monday, hitting a decade high, according to China Global Television Network's financial market analyst Timothy Pope on Friday.
Chinese stocks closed higher on Friday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index up 0.92 percent to 4,120.43 points.
The Shenzhen Component Index closed 1.15 percent higher at 14,120.15 points.
"The markets have wrapped up a very buoyant first week of the year, with the Shanghai Composite up close to 3 percent since Monday, and 0.9 percent today alone, taking it to a fresh decade high. I feel like I've already used those words a lot this week. The Shenzhen Component added almost 1.2 percent today, also had a very good day. Today the market got some welcome news in the latest inflation data, showing consumer prices rose to a three year high in December. The CPI was up 0.8 percent with particularly big jumps in the price of foods, so fresh vegetables and beef in particular, that's according to the National Bureau of Statistics, but both signs of easing consumer deflationary pressure, was definitely welcomed by the market, as was signs in the producer price index, that was responding to the governments campaign against involution, is starting ease pressures there," said the analyst.
"But it has been pointed out by market analysts that investors are still favoring non-consumer facing sectors when it comes to equities at the moment, so some of that is coincidental, some of it's not. Investors are still chasing metals stocks, in particular, gold miners still riding high on Friday despite a drop in the price of spot gold. But in China we have actually seen the gold bullion trading at a huge premium this week, more than 20 dollars above the global spot price this week, with interest in bullion only growing in the new year. And that's been reflected in equities. But most sectors trading higher today, we saw the big exception being financial stocks, so there was some profit taking on the big banks and insurers after some gains earlier in the week," he said.
China stock markets wrap up buoyant first week of 2026: CGTN market analyst
