China's 2025 GDP Hits RMB140.2 Trillion, Per Capita Income Rises

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), China's statistical authorities focused on high-quality development, deepening reforms in key statistical areas, strengthening capacity building, and consolidating data quality foundations. The economy achieved four consecutive leaps, with GDP crossing RMB110 trillion, RMB120 trillion, RMB130 trillion, and RMB140 trillion milestones from 2021 to 2025, reaching RMB140.2 trillion in 2025 and firmly ranking second worldwide. Per capita GDP reached US$13,953 in 2025, exceeding US$13,000 for three consecutive years. Labor productivity per worker (at 2020 prices) rose to RMB184,000, with an average annual growth of 6.0%, 0.6 percentage points faster than the economic growth rate. From 2021 to 2025, China's average annual contribution to world economic growth remained around 30%. In 2025, total goods trade exceeded RMB45 trillion, ranking first globally for nine consecutive years, while services trade held second place worldwide.

Innovation-driven development advanced, with total R&D spending exceeding RMB3.9 trillion in 2025, ranking second globally, and R&D intensity rising to 2.80%. China's Global Innovation Index ranking reached 10th place in 2025, up four spots from 2020, with the number of top-100 innovation clusters ranking first globally. From 2021 to 2025, value added of large-scale equipment manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing grew at average annual rates of 8.4% and 9.2%, respectively. In 2025, the digital economy core industries' value added accounted for over 10.5% of GDP. Modern services such as information transmission, software, and IT services, and leasing and business services grew at average annual rates of 13.1% and 10.7%, respectively. E-commerce transaction volume reached RMB46.7 trillion in 2025, up 29.1% from 2020.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, domestic demand contributed an average of 83.0% to economic growth, with final consumption expenditure averaging 58.8%, up 10 percentage points from the 13th Five-Year Plan period. By end-2025, the urbanization rate of the permanent population reached 67.89%, up 4 percentage points from end-2020, and the urban-rural per capita disposable income ratio narrowed to 2.31. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Yangtze River Delta, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area strengthened their leading roles. In 2025, clean energy consumption (natural gas, hydro, wind, and solar) accounted for 30.4% of total energy consumption. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, energy consumption per unit of GDP fell by over 16% cumulatively, excluding energy used as raw material and non-fossil energy. New energy vehicle production in 2025 was 10.3 times that of 2020, with sales and production ranking first globally for 11 consecutive years. The proportion of days with good air quality in cities at prefecture level and above remained stable at around 87%, surface water quality sections with good or excellent ratings rose to 91.4%, and forest coverage exceeded 25%.

China became a major trading partner for over 160 countries and regions, signed investment cooperation memoranda with more than 50 countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, and completed landmark projects such as the China-Laos Railway and the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway. China implemented unilateral visa waivers or full mutual visa exemptions for over 70 countries, increased the number of pilot free trade zones to 22, and raised the total number of open ports to 311. By the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the overall tariff level had fallen to 7.3%, foreign investment access restrictions in manufacturing were eliminated, and attracted foreign investment exceeded US$700 billion from 2021 to 2025.

Employment remained stable, with the surveyed urban unemployment rate at year-end ranging from 5.1% to 5.5% during 2021-2025, and annual new urban jobs exceeding 12 million. Per capita disposable income rose from RMB32,000 in 2020 to RMB43,000 in 2025, with an average real annual growth of 5.4% at comparable prices. Basic pension and medical insurance coverage rates reached or exceeded 95%, and urban and rural minimum living standards increased by 22.5% and 24.6%, respectively, compared with 2020. The nine-year compulsory education completion rate remained above 95%. By end-2025, medical institutions had 10.04 million beds and 13.46 million health technicians, with per capita sports area at 3.1 square meters.

Grain output reached 1.43 trillion jin in 2025, exceeding 1.4 trillion jin for two consecutive years. Primary energy production surpassed 5 billion tonnes of standard coal equivalent, with energy self-sufficiency rising above 84%. From 2021 to 2025, manufacturing value added grew at an average real annual rate of 5.5%, accounting for nearly 30% of the global total, ranking first for 16 consecutive years, with over 140,000 specialized and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises cultivated. The government debt ratio remained well below the G20 average, and major progress was made in reforming and mitigating risks of small and medium financial institutions, with non-performing asset disposal increasing by over 40% compared with the 13th Five-Year Plan period.

A statistical system supporting high-quality development has been basically established, comprising one national economic industry classification, one statistical product classification catalog, one national statistical survey metadata standard, 22 derived industry standards, three regional standards, seven statistical unit standards, and three other national standards, supplemented by departmental statistical standards. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the National Bureau of Statistics formulated or revised multiple national statistical standards, including classifications for the digital economy and its core industries, modern services, energy-saving and environmental protection clean industries, and manufacturing-related activities, as well as regulations on market entity statistical classification, regional statistical code compilation rules, and private economy statistical classification standards. It also approved departmental standards such as the trial classification for low-altitude economy and its core industries.

The statistical indicator system comprises thousands of basic survey indicators and comprehensive summary indicators, reflecting the overall layout of economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological civilization construction. The bureau established specialized indicator systems for high-quality development performance evaluation, Chinese-style modernization, urban high-quality development, rural revitalization, common prosperity, and ecological protection compensation. The survey method system is based on periodic censuses, with regular sample surveys as the mainstay, supplemented by comprehensive surveys and key surveys, and fully utilizes administrative records and social big data. The survey system includes three major national censuses (population, agriculture, and economy) and over 80 regular and special surveys covering agriculture, industry, construction, services, investment, population, labor, household income and expenditure, and prices.

The national accounts system has formed a framework of five basic accounts plus extended accounts, regularly compiling GDP, input-output tables, flow of funds accounts, macro balance sheets, and derived industry value added. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the bureau reformed the accounting method for owner-occupied housing services, established a formal quarterly expenditure-based GDP accounting system, deepened reforms in regional GDP unified accounting, compiled the fifth national economic census annual input-output tables and supply-use tables, established a digital economy value added accounting system, and initially established ecological product value accounting and natural resource balance sheet compilation systems.

The national data quality management system is centered on the National Statistical Quality Assurance Framework, supported by multiple ancillary systems. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the bureau revised the framework and statistical business process specifications, formulated source data quality verification measures, and routinely conducted evaluations of major statistical survey projects and feasibility tests of survey forms. The statistical supervision system, implemented through statistical inspections, law enforcement checks, monitoring and evaluation, and high-quality development performance evaluations, carried out two rounds of inspections, seriously investigated and punished major statistical violations, and promoted coordination with disciplinary, supervisory, inspection, and audit oversight.

Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the statistical authorities will focus on improving statistical systems conducive to a unified national market, advancing revisions of the national economic industry classification and related derived industry classifications, and enriching indicators for the new economy, new quality productive forces, social livelihood improvement, and carbon emissions. They will improve the services statistics monitoring system, deepen reforms in accounting methods, implement new international standards for national accounts, and improve macro balance sheet compilation. Efforts will strengthen monitoring, analysis, and early warning of economic operations, enhance tracking of key areas such as Chinese-style modernization, common prosperity, new quality productive forces, the intelligent economy, old-new growth driver conversion, and coordinated urban-rural and regional development, and improve high-quality development performance evaluation. The revision of implementing regulations for the Statistics Law will be accelerated, inspection effectiveness enhanced, law enforcement checks intensified, and cross-departmental and cross-field statistical supervision coordination mechanisms established.

The statistical digital transformation will be accelerated, with new data resource channels expanded, departmental administrative records and social big data collection and application strengthened, and artificial intelligence and big data deeply integrated into statistical operations.