China's economy showed significant recovery in the first two months of 2026, making a strong start for the new year, said a spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday.

At a press conference in Beijing, Fu Linghui, the spokesman and the chief economist of the NBS, briefed the media on the country's economic performance in January and February.

"We implemented a more proactive and effective macroeconomic policy in January and February. We intensified counter-cyclical and cross-cyclical adjustments, continued expanding domestic demand, improved supply, added new high-quality resources and made the best use of existing ones. As a result, production and supply increased at a faster pace, market demand was stable and showed signs of growth, employment and prices remained generally stable, and new quality productive forces grew strongly. The economy got off to a strong and good start," said Fu.

"Industrial production accelerated, with the equipment manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing sectors showing strong growth. In January and February, the value-added industrial output of industrial enterprises above designated size went up 6.3 percent year on year, and the pace was 1.1 percentage points faster than the level in December of last year. The value added of equipment manufacturing increased by 9.3 percent year on year, and the value added of high-tech manufacturing increased by 13.1 percent, outpacing overall industrial growth by 3.0 and 6.8 percentage points, respectively," said the spokesman.

The industrial output is used to measure the activity of large enterprises, each with an annual main business turnover of at least 20 million yuan (about 2.9 million U.S. dollars).

"The service sector saw rapid growth, with modern service industries developing at a fast pace. In January and February, the Index of Services Production increased by 5.2 percent year on year, 0.2 percentage points faster than in December of last year," he said.

"Market sales growth rebounded, with service retail sales growing rapidly. In January and February, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 8.6079 trillion yuan (about 1.25 trillion U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of 2.8 percent, 1.9 percentage points faster than in December of last year. Service retail sales increased by 5.6 percent year on year, 0.1 percentage points faster than the previous year," said Fu.