China's gross domestic product expanded by 5 percent in 2025 despite pressures, meeting the country's preset annual growth target of around 5 percent, official data showed on Monday.

The country's annual GDP came in at 140.19 trillion yuan ($20.13 trillion) in 2025, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. For the fourth quarter of 2025, the Chinese economy grew 4.5 percent year-on-year, following a 4.8 percent growth in the third quarter.?

China's value-added industrial output increased by 5.9 percent year-on-year in 2025. The figure rose by 5.2 percent in December following a 4.8 percent growth in November.

Retail sales, a key measurement of consumer spending, grew by 3.7 percent for the year, while retail sales in December increased by 0.9 percent versus the 1.3 percent growth recorded a month earlier.?

Fixed-asset investment — a gauge of expenditures on items including infrastructure, property, machinery and equipment —decreased by 3.8 percent in 2025, while in the first 11 months, it fell by 2.6 percent.

The surveyed urban jobless rate came in at 5.1 percent in December, flat with the figure in November, according to the NBS.?

China's economy has delivered "hard-won" results in 2025, featuring breakthroughs in technological advances and emerging consumption phenomena, setting the stage for a 2026 GDP growth target possibly at 4.5 percent to 5 percent, said Guan Tao, global chief economist at BOCI China.

He said in an exclusive interview with China Daily that 2025 was shaped by two major variables: heightened external uncertainty, including "extreme tariff pressures", and China's ongoing transition from old growth drivers to new ones.

Against such a backdrop, he said, China not only met its main annual targets with a GDP growth of around 5 percent but also saw a clear shift in investor sentiment and global perception.

"In the past, discussions about China often focused on what some called 'old stories' about its traditional growth drivers," Guan said. "But in 2025, when people talked about China, things like DeepSeek, Ne Zha 2, Unitree's humanoid robots, the overseas expansion of innovative pharmaceuticals, and Jiangsu city soccer league 'Suchao' all showed that China's economy has been full of highlights, whether in consumption recovery or technological innovation."

For 2026, he added that low inflation and room for job market improvement suggest the economy is still running below its potential, leaving space for stronger momentum if macroeconomic policy support and reforms work in tandem.

Lyu Jinkai contributed to this story

ouyangshijia@chinadaily.com.cn