China's non-manufacturing sector saw rapid expansion in August, with the service industry's prosperity level has rebounded significantly, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics and China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing on Sunday.
The Business Activity Index of China's non-manufacturing industry stood at 50.3 percent in August, up 0.2 percentage points from previous month, maintaining above 50 percent for multiple consecutive months, showing a steady growth of the country's non-manufacturing industry.
Among which, the business activity index of the service industry was 50.5 percent, up 0.5 percentage points from the previous month, reaching a high for the year.
"Driven by summer holiday consumption and supported by the policies of promoting large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-ins, various consumer-related sector indices have maintained an expansionary trend," said He Hui, vice president of China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.
Specifically, the business activity indices for capital market services, railway transport, air transport, telecommunications, radio and television, and satellite transmission services all remained in the high prosperity range of above 60 percent, indicating rapid growth in total business volume, according to the data.
The civil engineering construction industry continued to stay in the expansion zone, demonstrating that infrastructure-related activities maintained a relatively strong growth momentum, the data showed.
China's non-manufacturing sector sees rapid expansion in August
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lowered its global economic growth forecasts for 2026 to 3.1 percent in the World Economic Outlook (WEO) report published on Tuesday, while keeping its projection for 2027 at 3.2 percent.
This marks a deceleration from the estimated 3.4 percent growth achieved in 2025. Before the outbreak of the Middle East conflict, the bottom-up forecasts for global growth would have been 3.4 percent in 2026 and 3.2 percent in 2027.
The forecast incorporates the impact of the war and assumes that it will be limited in duration, intensity and scope, with disruptions fading by mid-2026.
Under the reference forecast, global headline inflation is expected to increase to 4.4 percent in 2026 and decline to 3.7 percent in 2027.
If the conflict and the ensuing spike in oil prices last longer, global economic growth in 2026 will fall to 2.5 percent, while global inflation will climb to 5.4 percent, according to the report.
In extreme cases, global economic growth in 2026 could drop to two percent, the report warned.
To be specific, the U.S. economy is projected to grow by 2.3 percent in 2026 and 2.1 percent in 2027, although higher trade barriers introduced since April 2025 are expected to continue to weigh on activity.
In the euro area, growth is projected to decline from 1.4 percent in 2025 to 1.1 percent in 2026 before edging up to 1.2 percent in 2027. The forecasts for 2026 and 2027 are each 0.2 percentage point lower than those compared in the January 2026 WEO Update.
The 2026 growth forecast for emerging market and developing economies is revised down by 0.3 percentage point, to 3.9 percent, while the outlook for advanced economies remains broadly unchanged. With risks still tilted to the downside since the January 2026 WEO Update, the IMF suggested a comprehensive policy package combining domestic measures with coordinated international actions to strengthen resilience and foster adaptability.
It also stated in the report that "trade restrictions play a limited role in correcting imbalances but can worsen output," and urged countries to cooperate and take coordinated actions to restore stability to international economic relations.
IMF lowers global growth forecast for 2026 to 3.1 pct
