China's brand value ranks second globally as innovation quality improves: official

China

China's brand value ranks second globally as innovation quality improves: official

2026-01-23 16:36 Last Updated At：01-25 12:49

China's brand value reached 1.81 trillion U.S. dollars at the end of 2025, ranking second in the world as the country's innovation quality and intellectual property (IP) benefits continued to see marked improvement, one official said on Friday.

At a press conference held by the State Council Information Office, Rui Wenbiao, deputy head of the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) detailed the country's latest IP achievements.

"The corporate invention patent industrialization rate has reached 54 percent, showing steady growth for multiple consecutive years. From January to November 2025, the total import and export value of intellectual property royalties nationwide amounted to 382.87 billion yuan (about 54.9 billion U.S. dollars). These developments are helping to drive China's service trade exports to new heights and foster new growth models," said Rui.

He also highlighted that innovation remains highly active in key regions, which continued to serve as leading hubs for technological advancement.

"In the 2025 Global Innovation Index released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai-Suzhou clusters ranked first, fourth, and sixth respectively among the world's top 100 science and technology clusters. These regions have fully leveraged their roles as a pacesetter for innovation and have become strategic pillars supporting China's transformation into an intellectual property powerhouse," Rui noted.

Meanwhile, patent-intensive industries continued to expand their contribution to economic growth in 2025.

"The added value of China's patent-intensive industries surpassed 18 trillion yuan. The contribution of these industries to the national economy increased steadily, with their share of GDP rising from 11.97 percent in 2020 to 13.38 percent in 2024," Rui said.

Escalating Middle East tensions drive up energy prices, squeezing US consumers

Soaring oil prices triggered by escalating tensions in the Middle East have heightened U.S. inflation pressures, with analysts warning that households face hundreds of dollars in extra costs if crude climbs further.

Data released on Tuesday by the American Automobile Association (AAA) showed that the national average price of regular gasoline in the United States has risen 18.64 percent compared with Feb. 26. The AAA data also indicated that the national average price of diesel on Tuesday was up 22.85 percent from a week earlier.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at global ratings agency Moody's, warned that U.S. consumers are being threatened by a sharp rise in fuel prices. He said that if international oil prices climb by another 10 U.S. dollars per barrel, annual spending for an average U.S. household would increase by about 450 dollars.

Zandi noted that a surge in oil prices would intensify inflationary pressure in the United States, eroding consumers' purchasing power and weighing on consumption, economic growth, and employment.

Tensions sharply escalated across the Middle East on Feb 28 when the United States and Israel launched large-scale joint airstrikes on Iran. The Iranian side has responded with multiple waves of missile and drone attacks targeting Israel and U.S. assets across the region, hitting many countries in the Gulf.