Strong investments in rail lines and other infrastructure offset weak consumer spending and a shrinking trade surplus as the Chinese economy continued to grow in the first three months of the year.
China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced on Thursday that the country’s gross domestic product grew 1.3 percent from the last three months of 2025. If that pace continues through the year, the Chinese economy will expand at an annual rate of about 5.3 percent.
In comparison with the same period last year, China’s gross domestic product was 5 percent larger in the first quarter. The figures came in slightly above economists’ forecasts for 4.8 percent growth.
One reason this year’s growth looked stronger was that the statistical agency said Thursday that the economy was weaker in the first half of last year than previously reported. That made this year’s results look better by comparison.
A long, steep slide in apartment prices has eroded China’s household savings, prompting many people to cut spending. Retail sales rose just 2.4 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, and only 1.7 percent in March, considerably weaker than what most economists had expected. Car sales fell 17 percent in the quarter after the government scaled back subsidies that had driven a boom last year.
That sluggishness contrasts sharply with an 8.9 percent increase in infrastructure investments in the first quarter from a year ago, as spending surged on the electricity grid, sewer lines and rail lines. China has long relied on building roads, bridges, ports, and other infrastructure projects to revive a slowing economy. But rising debt, especially among local and provincial governments, is making this strategy harder to sustain.
China’s consumer services sector has been struggling. Restaurants have closed across the country, and those still open echo with empty tables. Xiao Nan Guo, a nationwide chain offering Shanghainese cuisine at premium prices, exemplifies the downturn. After peaking at 139 outlets in 2015, it quietly shuttered most of its remaining locations in early February.
Exports have propped up the Chinese economy through much of its housing slump since 2021. But this time they failed to offset broader weakness after a big surge in China’s largest category of imports, computer chips.
Weak demand at home has pushed Chinese companies to seek growth abroad. Exports grew during the first three months of this year at their fastest quarterly clip in more than four years, led by electric car exports, up 78 percent, and a 50 percent rise in shipments of lithium batteries. Louis Kuijs, chief economist for Asia and the Pacific at S&P Global Ratings, said overseas sales were keeping factories busy across China.
“It has been robust exports that have been a key driver of industrial production and G.D.P.,” he said.
It is unclear if export strength will last. Tariffs and rising raw material costs from the war in Iran appeared to weigh on the Chinese economy in March. Chinese officials are expected to press for relief from U.S. tariffs at a summit next month in Beijing between President Trump and Xi Jinping, China’s top leader.
China remains better positioned than other major economies to weather disruptions to oil and gas supplies from the war in Iran because of its large stockpiles of fossil fuels and dominant position in renewable energy. But China’s March trade data showed some unexpected shifts that sharply narrowed the country’s trade surplus.
China’s exports of toys and footwear, once strong categories, fell as higher plastic costs from the war in the Middle East squeezed manufacturers. Chemical companies have continued raising prices, suggesting further pressure in the months ahead.
Exports of rare-earth metals also plummeted in March. Beijing severely restricted shipments to Japan, amid a dispute over relations with Taiwan.
The most notable change has been a surge in semiconductor imports, as China rapidly builds data centers for artificial intelligence. Computer chip purchases jumped in January and February and hit a record high in March, up 54 percent from a year earlier in U.S. dollar terms.
A weak renminbi, China’s currency, has made computer chip imports more expensive, adding to the drag on the economy. Beijing has kept its currency weak to boost exports, making Chinese goods more competitive abroad.
But that same currency weakness raises import costs. The increasing semiconductor costs also reflect heightened global demand for the computer chips needed to power A.I. While the renminbi has strengthened slightly over the past year, it remains far weaker than what economists consider its true market value.
Export sectors that rely heavily on steel are thriving in China these days. Domestic steel is cheap because of chronic oversupply and reluctance to close state-owned steel mills. With other countries’ tariffs limiting direct exports of steel, manufacturers are channeling the glut into finished goods like cars and ships, which face fewer trade barriers.
Li Rongchun, who owns a small business in Yancheng supplying acetylene and oxygen to nearby shipyards, said he had more orders than he could handle. “Right now, shipyards are building a lot of oil tankers and container ships, and many foreign clients are coming,” he said.
But in another nearby town, the picture is far more bleak. A resident who gave only his family name, Shao, said that property prices at complexes in his neighborhood had dropped by more than half over the past year and that even steep discounts were not enticing buyers.
“There are just too many empty apartments — even at very low prices, no one wants to buy them,” he said.
Residential construction has slowed sharply over the past four years, but apartment sales have declined even faster, leaving a growing glut of unsold homes and making buyers wary of committing their savings to a purchase.
Mr. Kuijs said prices were likely to keep falling this year before bottoming out next year. But with residential construction already down so much, there isn’t much room for building activity to fall further. Any stabilization would ease a major drag on growth.
“That drag will remain this year,” Mr. Kuijs said, “but it probably won’t be as intense as it was in previous years.”
Ruoxin Zhang contributed research.
Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic.
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