China Industrial Output Growth Beats Estimates
2026-03-16 02:11
By
Farida Husna
1 min. read
China’s industrial production rose 6.3% yoy in the combined January–February period of 2026, accelerating from a 5.2% growth in December and exceeding market expectations of 5.1%.
Activity strengthened across major sectors, including mining (6.1% vs 5.4% in December), manufacturing (6.6% vs 5.7%), and utilities—electricity, heat, gas, and water—(4.7% vs 0.8%).
Within manufacturing, 35 of 41 major industries posted increases, including computers and communications equipment (14.2%), railway and shipbuilding (13.7%), general equipment (8.9%), special equipment (8.8%), electrical machinery (8.7%), chemicals (7.6%), coal mining and washing (7.2%), agriculture, food processing (6.1%), oil and gas (5.8%), textiles (5.3%), electricity and heat production (5.1%), non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling (3.9%), automotive (3.4%), non-metallic mineral products (2.5%), and ferrous metal smelting and rolling (2.2%).
Monthly, industrial output increased 0.83%.
In 2025, production grew 5.9%.