China's economy grew 4.5% in the third quarter of 2026 as exports outran spending at home

China's economy grew 4.5% in the third quarter of 2026 from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday, October 19. That beat the 4.4% forecast in a Reuters poll and was faster than the 4.3% of the second quarter, which had been the weakest reading in more than three years. The 4.6% figure that also circulated on Monday is the growth rate for January to September combined, and it sits inside Beijing's target of 4.5% to 5.0% for the year.

From the second quarter to the third, output rose 1.2%, up from 0.9% in the April to June period. The gain came mostly from selling goods abroad. CNN reported that strong exports of chips and electronic components, lifted by the global spending boom on artificial intelligence, carried the quarter while spending at home stayed weak.

Factories sped up, shoppers less so

The September activity data released with the GDP figure show the same split. Industrial output rose 5.5% from a year earlier, up from 5.2% in August and the fastest pace in six months. Retail sales grew 1.1%, up from 0.4% in August and the quickest since March, but still a fifth of the pace of factory output.

Investment is still shrinking

Spending on factories, roads and buildings fell again. Fixed-asset investment, which counts that spending, dropped 7.2% in the first nine months from the same period of 2025, the same pace as through August. Property is the largest drag: developers' investment fell 20.6% to 5,336.4 billion yuan, a steeper slide than the 19.9% drop through August, and the floor area of new construction starts was down 24.9%.

Reuters noted that the People's Bank of China has kept its main policy rate unchanged since a cut in May 2025, and that Beijing has held back from a large stimulus package because goods exports are expected to carry the economy to its target. Analysts quoted by Reuters described the mix as unbalanced, with domestic demand not yet able to sustain growth on its own.

How the yuan traded on the release

The 4.5% headline reached the MoveSurge news feed at 02:06:35 UTC, 10:06 a.m. in Beijing. The offshore yuan barely moved: USDCNH, the dollar's price in offshore yuan, stood at 6.6818 before the headline and was 0.012% lower ten minutes later. The result was only one tenth of a percentage point above the forecast. Other news may also have affected the price in that window.