China on track to achieve growth target for 2025, say experts and business leaders
BEIJING, March 14, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from chinadaily.com.cn：
China is expected to achieve its annual growth target of around 5 percent this year and present more business opportunities for both domestic and foreign companies, with its intensified efforts to spur innovation and further boost consumption and investment, economists and business leaders said at the "CEO: Grow with China" Roundtable hosted by China Daily on Friday.
"China's economy is right on track to meet its preset annual growth target of around 5 percent for 2025, supported by its ultra-large domestic market, strong innovation capability, as well as a string of supportive policies aimed at boosting consumption and emerging industry investment," said Lin Shen, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of World Economics and Politics.
Government policies aimed at fostering innovation and developing emerging industries have been steadily implemented. Fiscal policies and other innovation-friendly measures will play a crucial role in sustaining economic growth throughout the year, Lin said.
Lin highlighted the structural shifts in the economy, where new growth drivers are replacing old ones, and stressed that new quality productive forces, including AI-powered manufacturing, have begun to take hold. "Our new quality productive forces, coupled with AI empowerment, have integrated well with the manufacturing and the real economy. There will be significant progress in application scenarios."
"Even though there are certain geopolitical headwinds, we are still very optimistic about China's economic prospects this year as the country's fiscal and monetary policies go hand in hand," said Ole Gerdau, chief operating officer at Deutsche Bank China.
According to him, consumption will be the key driver of the economy, roughly contributing to two-thirds of China's growth this year. The trade-in program, for which funding has been doubled, is expected to have a positive impact on consumption.
Gerdau said the emergence of Chinese AI startup DeepSeek is changing people's perception about China's innovation strength and technological advancements. "This creates a wake-up moment for the world that now might be the time to invest in China. We expect this year to be the turning point where international investors are going to shift their focuses and have a higher allocation into the Chinese market," he said.
China is prioritizing new quality productive forces and enhancing financial services to enterprises in its economic agenda for the year, as policymakers announced recently the rollout of a raft of supportive measures aimed at creating new growth drivers for the world's second-largest economy.
The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, said late on Thursday that it will reduce the reserve requirement ratio and interest rates as appropriate based on the domestic and international economic and financial situation as well as the performance of financial markets.
The A-share benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.81 percent to close at 3419.56 points on Friday, while the ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, jumped 2.8 percent to close at 2226.72 points.
The National Development and Reform Commission recently announced that it would establish a national venture capital guidance fund, with the goal of enhancing, strengthening and expanding innovative enterprises. The fund is expected to attract nearly 1 trillion yuan ($138 billion) in capital from local governments and the private sector.
The participants at the roundtable emphasized that emerging sectors like artificial intelligence have great potential in China, presenting new opportunities for enterprises.
China's AI-led innovation is also throwing up opportunities for businesses like Rolls-Royce, said Troy Wang, executive vice-president of Rolls-Royce Greater China.
"China's focus on innovation-driven growth is making it continue to be an important country for Rolls-Royce, and it's so much more than just a market for us," Wang said.
"Rolls-Royce just achieved a record year in 2024 in terms of business performance and we're confident about 2025," he said, adding that the company is building Beijing Aero Engine Services Co Ltd, a joint venture in Beijing, into a world-leading digitally enabled aeronautical engine repair and overhaul shop.
Rani Jarkas, chairman of Cedrus Group, said that the development of AI requires a large amount of electricity, chips, and applications, and China has it all. "Technology speaks for itself," he said.
"I think the innovation will continue and the opportunities will grow for Chinese companies going abroad and for foreign companies to come to explore the market and set up local units here," he said.
Huang Yanxiang, co-founder and CEO of Shanghai CarbonNewture and ESG expert, said the current wave of AI-led innovation in China is transforming industries by integrating AI with manufacturing, boosting efficiency, and giving rise to new business models. For CarbonNewture, this means deeply integrating AI into its carbon accounting platforms, improving data analysis and reporting capabilities to deliver more precise and actionable insights.
The roundtable was jointly organized by China Daily Institute for Corporate Communication and China Services Information Platform.
View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/china-on-track-to-achieve-growth-target-for-2025-say-experts-and-business-leaders-302402346.html
SOURCE chinadaily.com.cn
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Is This Stock the Best Way to Play Chinese AI?
While restricted from the latest and greatest chips for now, over half the world's AI researchers are in China. As such, growth investors should try to have some China-related AI exposure in their portfolios. Here's how a South African stock may offer the best way to play Chinese AI. 10 stocks we like better than Naspers › Would you believe that the best way to play China's AI ambitions may be a South African stock? Artificial intelligence has the potential to change the economy. As such, investors should have exposure to some AI companies in their portfolios -- and that includes Chinese exposure. Even Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently noted that China is home to half of the world's AI researchers. And the January unveiling of the groundbreaking DeepSeek R1 model showed how China is able to innovate cutting-edge AI, even with limited silicon access. Nevertheless, investing in China carries risks pertaining to its economy, its government, and the market mechanics of owning Chinese stocks. That's why the best way to expose oneself to Chinese AI may be South African holding company Naspers (OTC: NPSNY). It's still very early in the AI races, and in truth, it's hard to know who is going to win out. It could be an upstart AI lab such as DeepSeek in China or OpenAI in the U.S., or one of the existing big tech giants. In this investor's opinion, the existing incumbents are the best bet. These companies have huge technological and financial resources to invest in AI, and AI should also enable existing large businesses to boost revenue and lower costs through better automation and data science. That's why Tencent (OTC: TCEHY) seems like good bet to be a big winner from Chinese AI. Tencent has the largest social media platform in China in WeChat, with more than 1.4 billion users. It's also the largest video game publisher in the China, the largest video and music streaming company, one of the two large digital payments companies, and one of China's cloud computing giants. In addition, Tencent is building its own large model, called Hunyuan, which could lead to vast new AI opportunities if it ends being more performant than DeepSeek and other competitors over time. Tencent stock doesn't trade on U.S. stock exchanges, but it does trade over the counter as an American depositary receipt. However, a better way to play Tencent may be through its largest shareholder, European-domiciled Prosus (OTC: PROSY), which owns more than 23% of Tencent's stock. And the best way to invest in Prosus may be in its largest shareholder, Naspers, which owns 43% of Prosus. Naspers is a 110-year-old South African media company that was fortunate enough to invest in Tencent when it was just a startup in 2001. That investment eventually grew to be worth hundreds of billions, dwarfing Naspers' original business. Naspers then sold portions of its Tencent stake over time, investing in new businesses across food delivery, fintech, classifieds, e-commerce, ed-tech, and other tech startups. However, Naspers began to trade at a huge discount to the value of not only its net assets but also its Tencent stake alone. Management attributed that growing discount to its large size relative to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The thinking was that large index funds cap their asset weightings, which meant they had to sell Naspers stock once it reached a certain-sized allocation. In 2019, Naspers created Prosus, a new entity it listed on the larger Euronext Exchange in Amsterdam, and spun it off to shareholders. Today, Naspers owns about 43% of Prosus, which owns all of Naspers' assets outside of South Africa, while Naspers owns some small additional South African assets on its own. The plan didn't really work, though, as, Prosus still trades at a 30% discount its total net assets and even a 9% discount to the value of its Tencent stake alone. Meanwhile, Naspers trades at an even bigger 36% discount to the value of its assets, which is mainly just its 43% stake in Prosus. Owning Tencent at a discount is an attractive proposition, but of course it won't make much of a difference if the valuation gap never closes. That being said, a new development at Prosus could change this dynamic. Before this year, Prosus' businesses were free cash flow negative, so the company was dependent on Tencent stock sales and Tencent's dividend for cash for funding. However, in fiscal 2025, which ended in March, Prosus' non-Tencent businesses turned free cash flow positive for the first time, excluding Tencent's dividend, generating $36 million in positive free cash flow and improving free cash flow by nearly $1 billion over the past three years. Prosus also has a new CEO in Fabricio Bloisi, who took over the job exactly one year ago. Bloisi is an entrepreneur and the very successful former CEO of iFood, now the largest food delivery company in Brazil, which Prosus fully acquired back in 2022. Having a proven startup operator is a contrast with Prosus' prior leadership, and recent results appear to show Bloisi is raising the bar on execution. Before today, if Prosus wanted to buy a company or repurchase its stock at a big discount, it would have to sell part of its Tencent stake. That probably played into the "conglomerate discount," as investors may not have liked the capital allocation of selling a high-quality business in Tencent to buy more risky and unprofitable startups. However, if the other operating businesses continue to grow positive free cash flow outside Tencent, that could change sentiment. Prosus wouldn't have to sell as much or any Tencent stock and could benefit from future compound earnings growth. If a Prosus/Naspers valuation rerating occurs, that could make Prosus and/or Naspers the most attractive way to play Tencent -- and with it, the growth of Chinese AI. Before you buy stock in Naspers, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Naspers wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $713,547!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $966,931!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,062% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 177% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025 Billy Duberstein and/or his clients have positions in Naspers and Prosus. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia and Tencent. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Is This Stock the Best Way to Play Chinese AI? was originally published by The Motley Fool
Axios
26 minutes ago
- Axios
Trump tariffs could dampen July Fourth fireworks for 2026
As Americans prepare to light up the skies this Fourth of July, the fireworks industry is sounding the alarm: without tariff relief, the nation's 250th birthday celebration in 2026 could be in jeopardy. Why it matters: A looming tariff burden on Chinese imports is sparking fears of higher costs, supply shortages and even canceled shows. "If the tariff increases again back up to triple digits — let's say 145% — it will cripple this industry," Julie Heckman, executive director of the American Pyrotechnics Association, told Axios. The big picture: 99% of consumer fireworks and 90% of professional display fireworks used in the U.S. come from China, Heckman said. A 25% to 145% tariff imposed under a trade provision known as Section 301 is adding strain to the supply chain and pricing. China typically halts fireworks production during hot summer months due to safety risks, narrowing the window for U.S. importers to place and receive orders. Zoom in: Bruce Zoldan, CEO of Ohio-based Phantom Fireworks, told Axios that his 100 stores have seen a big surge in recent days. Over the weekend, Phantom also opened 1,600 seasonal stands and tents. "People are starting to buy now," he said, noting sales are almost 30% higher per day than last year. "If you wait until July 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, half the merchandise is sold out and the lines are long." Phantom — the nation's largest consumer-based retail fireworks company, supplying thousands of stores nationwide like Home Depot — received 85% of its inventory prior to tariffs, Zoldan said. "There could be a few minor changes, but for the most part, our prices are stable with the last year," he said. "Now, going into next year that's another story." State of play: Industry leaders say they need an exemption like the one President Trump granted in 2019 to move forward with planning for 2026 and beyond. "Thirty percent is not sustainable — not going into what we think will be the biggest celebration, consumption of fireworks ever on record," Heckman told Axios. "This isn't political for us," Heckman said. "We support the president 100%, and themajority of firework entities and their customers — the folks coming in to celebrate Independence Day — they are his base." The other side: The White House pushed back on the fireworks industry's plea for tariff relief. "Real prosperity and patriotism isn't celebrating the independence of our country with cheap foreign-made firecrackers and trinkets," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to Axios. "It's having a country with booming Main Streets, a thriving working class, and robust manufacturing." Yes, but: Heckman said moving fireworks production stateside is impossible, especially for 2026. "Even if we brought some manufacturing back to the U.S., it wouldn't be optimal," Heckman said, noting it's highly dangerous, labor-intensive and regulated. "We could never produce the volume the U.S. relies on for celebrating Independence Day." What's next: Heckman said her organization has been advocating on Capitol Hill and has a meeting in late July with the U.S. Trade Representative's office. "Right now, we're at a standstill," Zoldan said of the fireworks industry. "We're getting close to the point where we have to place our orders for next year, and they have to start manufacturing right after Labor Day." Zoldan said any delay past Labor Day for submitting orders means a certain percentage won't be manufactured in time to get to America.
Forbes
34 minutes ago
- Forbes
Avolta Grows Retail Footprint As Per-Head Spending Lags Traffic Growth
Xavier Rossinyol: 'We are convinced that a high level of geographical diversification is key ... More for the resilience of the group.' A presentation from the world's biggest travel retailer, Avolta, has highlighted a negative trend in the global travel retail market: growth in spend per passenger (SPP) is not keeping up with the number of travelers taking to the skies—with duty-free store owners and their airport landlords still not doing enough to reverse the trend. Avolta—whose revenue hit 13.5 billion Swiss francs ($15.3 billion), up by 6.4% last year—held a Capital Markets Day on Thursday in Barcelona for the first time in three years. The company, whose brands include Autogrill, HMSHost, and Hudson, shared that while like-for-like growth between 2023 and 2025 was 4-5%, SPP only rose by 2-3%. Particularly hard hit have been product categories such as alcohol and watches/jewelry, both currently in negative territory. From 2022, a Covid-19 bounce-back year when SPP jumped by 17%, it fell to 5% in 2023, and 3.2% last year. The first quarter of 2025 was stable, but not great, at 3%. This compares to airline association IATA data showing passenger growth rates over those same three years as 64%, 37%, and 10% respectively, where 2024 was 3.8% above pre-pandemic levels for the first time. Airports are where Avolta derives more than 80% of its revenue. Key nationalities impacting global SPP Part of the negative impact of lower SPP growth has come from fewer high-spending Russian and Chinese passengers traveling globally due to sanctions and post-Covid caution, respectively. Duty-free retailers reliant on these nationalities have seen their SPPs decreasing, Importantly, about one-third (34.4% currently) of Avolta's like-for-like growth comes from SPP, and two-thirds from passenger growth. It therefore makes more sense to expand into new travel locations which is exactly what has been happening in recent years: for example, in the United States at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport and elsewhere. At the presentation, Xavier Rossinyol, CEO of Avolta, said: 'We are at the mid-point of the strategic plan, Destination 2027, that we presented to the equity markets in September 2022. We are convinced that a high level of geographical diversification is key to the resilience of the group. We are growing with new concessions and new countries in every one of our four regions.' Between 2022 and 2024, Avolta also secured contract renewals at a high rate of 95%. Airport landlords' concerns are not necessarily the same as retailers but Avolta's scale and data sharing approach is yielding results in the way it has managed to retain business with relative ease. Airport operators are also hyper-focused on their customer experience ratings, and retail is one of the most visible and tangible aspects of this for a passenger. Avolta makes headway in Denmark The latest win for Avolta has been in Denmark, where it has just been awarded a five-year food and beverage (F&B) contract in Copenhagen Airport's Terminal 3 expansion covering five new units. The retailer has been at the airport—which processed 30 million passengers last year, still marginally below 2019—for nearly 20 years and currently operates five units including Copenhagen Coffee Lab, Neighbourhood Pizza, and Burger King. Avolta has added new retail space at Copenhagen Airport's T3 extension. Switzerland-based Avolta is an industry bellwether. By revenue, the company was almost double the size of its nearest rival last year and it is also one of just two (the other being Lagardère Travel Retail (LTR), which is now in a leadership transition phase), that operates across the main travel spheres: airport, trains, cruises/ports, downtown, and highways. The company left out borders, also a key channel, in its assessment. The next nearest travel retailer is China's CTG Duty Free Group which has seen declining revenue in recent years. In 2024, sales fell to 56.5 billion Chinese Yuan, or about $7.9 billion in 2024 (based on last year's average FX rate). France's LTR ranks third at $6.1 billion, but grew faster than its Swiss rival last year. Avolta has managed to strengthen its balance sheet and cut costs to build better foundations for its future. Yves Gerster, CFO of Avolta, noted: 'Avolta has a compelling equity story that combines resilience, growth, and long-term value creation.' However, as before Covid, the company is likely over-reliant on growth in global passenger traffic—another pandemic would be devastating for it and a still fragmented global industry. The Role of Data and Loyalty in Driving SPP The Gen Y and Gen Z cohorts are now in the majority, and growing. Spend per passenger, despite being another big growth driver, seems less of a priority versus new locations—something every big travel retailer is also looking at—despite the brag from Avolta that SPP 'is increasing thanks to the company's sharpened commercial focus.' But when it is growing at only half the rate of traffic growth this is not a win, even if competitors may not be doing as well. Naturally, the drive to add more market share is enticing, and Rossinyol is lured by a huge untapped traveler market and the buoyant future forecasts for passengers. For example, airports association ACI says numbers will exceed 12 billion in 2030, up from 9.5 billion last year. To his credit, Rossinyol is now heavily pushing the data side of the business and has revamped the loyalty scheme Club Avolta for this purpose and to drive SPP. As the largest duty-free retailer 'we have the possibility to access more data than anybody in the industry.' He added: 'Are we doing everything we should be doing? No,' he admitted. 'We are still at an early stage… but we are much better placed today than three years ago.' With Gen Y and Gen Z accounting for more than 60% of travelers, comparing prices is very much the norm because a good price still remains a top priority for them, and other travelers, at airports according to Avolta's data. So SPP will continue to fall if duty-free operators don't address this and/or can't meaningfully engage with them on other levels such as local sourcing, product heritage and authenticity, as well as value. At the meeting, Avolta reaffirmed its medium-term outlook of organic growth at between 5% and 7%, with core Ebitda margin improvements of 20-40bps. More stories and information about Avolta can be found by following this link.
