Economists at several international financial institutions have commended on China's economic and development achievements over the past year and expressed confidence that the country will sustain its strong growth momentum and serve as a stabilizing force for global economic growth this year.
In an interview with China Media Group, Xing Ziqiang, chief economist at Morgan Stanley China, pointed out that the Chinese economy demonstrated robust vitality in 2025, with steady progress made in new quality productive forces and fruitful results yielded in sci-tech innovation.
China is at the forefront globally in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), biomedicine, robotics, and quantum technology, Xing said, predicting the country's AI models will maintain a strong advantage in the new round of technological revolution.
"In particular, China's AI models are mostly open-source, lightweight, and sufficiently user-friendly. They are being exported and adopted by ordinary people and countless small and medium-sized enterprises, laying the foundation for China's inevitable rise in the next stage of the technological revolution," Xing said.
Currently, China is seeing accelerated development of its cultural and tourism industry, with experiential consumption and the supply of emotional value trending in the market.
Taimur Baig, chief economist at Singapore's DBS Bank, noted that the proportions of experiential consumption and service consumption in the cultural and tourism service industry showed sharp increases during the latest peak season of the Spring Festival holiday, which ended last week.
These types of consumption represent endogenous driving forces for China's high-quality economic development, Baig said.
"So the shift toward experiential type of consumption is happening worldwide. China is not alone. And to us, that's good," he said.
China targets an economic growth of 4.5 percent to 5 percent this year and will strive for better in practice, according to a government work report delivered by Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the opening meeting of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) on Thursday.
Both Baig and Xing believe China can achieve the annual growth target. They said China's advantages in industrial clusters, its large engineering talent pool, and the strong technological iteration capabilities in its vast domestic market will underpin a further expansion of the country's export.
"We think that the foundation that China has put in place with respect to education, research and development, and investment, that it would pave the way for substantial high value-added economic growth. So to us that years ahead are very exciting for China. The investment of the past few decades will begin to bear substantial fruit for the economy going forward," Baig said.
"We also expect that China's share of the global export market -- which is already high at around 15 percent -- will climb further in the future. By 2030, China's share of the global export market is expected to rise to 17 percent, meaning the competitiveness and control of China's industrial chain will reach a new level," Xing said.
Economists laud China’s economic performance in 2025, predict bright prospects
