The World Bank has lifted its 2025 gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for China to 4.8 percent, reflecting stronger-than-expected resilience in the world’s second-largest economy amid global headwinds, multiple media outlets report.
This compares to predicted rises of just 4 percent for this year and next, back in April when the US ramped up tariffs on Chinese imports
In its biannual economic outlook for East Asia and the Pacific region, the bank now expects 4.2 percent figure for 2026, but warns that the forecast decline from this year to next will be the result of “an expected slowdown in export growth and a likely reduction in the fiscal stimulus in light of rising public debt, as well as continued structural deceleration.”
[See more: China’s factory activity contracts for a fifth month as the economy slows]
While the World Bank also upgraded its 2025 growth forecast for the broader East Asia and Pacific region to 4.4 percent – a 0.2 percent increase – it kept its 2026 regional forecast at 4.5 percent.
“Firms adopt a ‘wait-and-see’ approach, delaying or scaling back capital expenditures,” the report said. It noted that the outlook remained clouded by new trade barriers along with an increasingly unpredictable political and policy landscape, particularly in Thailand and Indonesia.
Beijing is aiming for growth of “around 5 percent,” which analysts say will require more stimulus measures. The first half of 2025 saw China record GDP growth of 5.3 percent compared with the same period in 2024.
