Editor's note: Liu Chunsheng, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is an associate professor at the Beijing-based Central University of Finance and Economics. The article reflects the author's opinion and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

With the global economy in a period of volatile transformation full of uncertainties and unilateralism and protectionism surging, the international economic and trade environment is becoming increasingly complex. All countries face the common challenge of a sluggish growth momentum.

Against this backdrop, the International Monetary Fund has raised its forecast for China's economic growth rate in 2026 to 4.5 percent, an increase of 0.3 percentage points from the previous one, saying China's economy has demonstrated "remarkable resilience."

This adjustment not only recognizes the fundamentals of China's economic development, but also confirms the global market's firm confidence in China's role as a "ballast stone" and growth engine of the world economy.

China's economic resilience

Stable economic growth is a prerequisite for supporting global recovery. The core source of China's economic resilience is "stabilizing growth, ensuring employment, and stabilizing prices" in coordination.

Faced with the complex development environment of 2025, China has implemented more proactive and effective macro policies, coordinated the overall development of both domestic and international situations, and promoted the economy to forge ahead under pressure and move towards high-quality development.

There are indications the main annual development goals will be successfully achieved, laying a solid foundation for a good start to the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030). 

Ensuring employment, the foundation of people's livelihood and an important support for economic stability, gets priority in policy implementation. China will stabilize, expand, and improve the quality of jobs, ensuring employment for groups such as college graduates and migrant workers.

Stabilizing prices has created a favorable environment for economic operation. Despite fluctuations in global inflationary pressure, China has maintained basic stability in price levels through precise macro-control.

Harnessing core advantages

China's ultra-large market, its advantage, provides solid demand support for stable growth. The population of over 1.4 billion and a middle-income group of over 400 million constitute a huge consumer market that can not only absorb domestic production capacity and support economic circulation, but also attract the agglomeration of global resource factors, becoming a "growth blue ocean" in the eyes of global enterprises.

For instance, Germany's Bosch Group plans to invest 10 billion Chinese yuan ($1.4 billion) in five years to build an intelligent driving control industrial innovation project in China, and Denmark's Danfoss Group will add 2.7 billion yuan ($384.2 million) in investment to build a zero-carbon industrial park. The continuous increase in investment by foreign-funded enterprises is a recognition of China's market vitality.

A complete industrial system is the supply-side foundation for China's stable economic growth.

As the world's largest manufacturing country, China has the most complete and largest industrial system in the world, with more than 200 industrial products, ranking first in global output and forming a virtuous cycle of "production-support-consumption."

In the first 11 months of 2025, the Shanghai Port crossed the milestone of handling 50 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) containers, 26 days earlier than in 2024, and the annual throughput is expected to hit a new high by the year. This busy scene portrays the vitality of China's industrial system and its position as a global supply chain hub.

Continuous transformation and upgrading have injected lasting momentum into China's economic growth. China's adherence to innovation-driven development has seen its global innovation index ranking jump to 10th among 139 economies.

The vigorous development of new quality productive forces has promoted the transformation of China's economy from "quantitative expansion" to "qualitative leap." In 2026, new drivers of growth will be cultivated, "AI+" expanded, and a new round of high-quality development actions implemented for key industrial chains. This will strengthen the growth resilience of the economy and open up new space for global economic growth.

Engine for global recovery

The stable growth of China's economy has become a key support for global recovery. China has been contributing around 30 percent to global economic growth, making it an important engine for global growth.

China's supporting role in global recovery is reflected not only in its growth contribution, but also in providing a stable market demand, industrial chain support, and cooperation opportunities.

As the world's second largest import market after the U.S., China continues to expand the supply of high-quality goods and services, release consumption potential, and provide broad market space for enterprises around the world.

In terms of opening-up and cooperation, China adheres to institutional opening-up, expands autonomous opening-up in the service sector, optimizes the layout of pilot free trade areas, and deepens the reform of the foreign investment promotion system and mechanism. The Hainan Free Trade Port is another powerful tool, especially with the launch of island-wide special customs operations this month.

This open stance not only enables China to better integrate into the global economy, but also gives vitality to global economic cooperation and promotes a mutually beneficial and win-win development pattern.

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