Other BriefingsChina’s 2025 Local GDP Results and 2026 Targets
China’s regional GDP growth in 2025 and 2026 targets reveal a shift in development patterns across the country as certain provinces benefit from manufacturing and tech booms while others fall short of expectations as a result tariff pressure and weak domestic demand. Meanwhile, 2026 and 2030 targets suggest the country expects slower growth in the coming year but for current momentum to last until the end of the decade and beyond.
China’s 31 mainland provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions have released their 2025 economic indicators and official GDP growth targets for 2026, revealing new patterns of regional development.
With an uneven set of 2025 growth results, local governments in regions that underperformed have lowered their targets for 2026, while most kept them unchanged from the previous year.
Others still have posted robust growth, with manufacturing continuing to take off in traditionally under-developed regions and high-tech and services shoring up activity in the eastern provinces and metropolises.
Guangdong province, the most populous region of China, retains the top place in regional GDP rankings, with the local economy approaching RMB 14.6 trillion (US$2.1 trillion). This was followed closely by Jiangsu, at RMB 14.2 trillion (US$2 trillion), and Shandong, whose economy broke RMB 10 trillion (US$1.4 trillion) for the first time.
Tibet continues to be the smallest regional economy in China, with GDP in 2025 reaching RMB 303 billion (US$43.7 billion). This was followed by Qinghai (RMB 412.2 billion/US$59.4 billion), Ningxia (RMB 569.6 billion/US$82.1 billion), and Hainan (RMB 810.9 billion/US$116.9 billion).
Over half of regions missed their growth targets in 2025. Despite having the largest GDP, Guangdong posted the country’s second-slowest growth rate in the country, its economy increasing just 3.9 percent year-on-year and missing its target of around 5 percent. The slowest growth rate, however, was in Liaoning, whose economy slowed from 5 percent year-on-year growth in 2024, to 3.7 percent in 2025. Both of these provinces saw sharp decelerations in industry and manufacturing, with growth in secondary industries slowing to 2.4 percent year-on-year in Guangdong and just 0.7 percent in Liaoning, as well as weak local demand and drops in fixed asset investment.
A handful of regions beat expectations, including Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, and Shanghai. Gansu, which grew 5.8 percent year-on-year to reach RMB 1.7 trillion (US$245 billion), has maintained its high rate of growth thanks to healthy growth across all three industry pillars, but manufacturing and industry exhibited an especially strong performance with a 6.7 percent increase from 2024. The province also recorded a 14.5 percent uptick in fixed asset investment, with investment in technological upgrading in the manufacturing sector surging by 30 percent year-on-year.
Henan and Hebei, meanwhile, both grew 5.6 percent from 2024, beating annual targets, with both provinces benefiting from strong growth across manufacturing and services. Zhejiang, another economic powerhouse and the country’s fourth-largest regional economy, posted a strong 5.5 percent increase, meeting its annual target.
Local governments cut growth targets for 2026
Most regions have set relatively modest GDP growth targets for 2026 compared with the previous year. The average growth target of the 31 mainland Chinese regions for this year is just over 5 percent, while in 2025 it was 5.35 percent. The slight decrease could be a sign that the country will set a lower national growth target for 2026, which reports have indicated could be between 4.5 and 5 percent. The official national target will not be released until the Two Sessions meetings in early March.
China hit its 2025 target of “around 5 percent” after a strong start to the year, with 5.4 percent year-on-year growth recorded in the first quarter, slowing to 4.5 percent in the fourth quarter.
Read more: China’s Economy in 2025: GDP Reaches 5.0% Growth Despite Challenges
National GDP targets have been steadily decreasing over the years as China’s economy matures and growth decelerates. Regional targets are typically set slightly higher on average than the national forecast.
While many regions’ 2026 figures are identical to the previous year’s, a few have lowered forecasts after actual growth fell short of 2025 targets. This includes Chongqing, which has lowered its target to “above 5 percent” after missing its target of “around 6 percent” by 0.7 percentage points in 2025. Guangdong, Guizhou, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Inner Mongolia all missed 2025 targets and have lowered forecasts for 2026. However, even regions that hit or beat their targets have set more cautious goals for 2026, suggesting the more prudent approach is a broad directive.
Hainan and Tibet are outliers. At 7 percent, Tibet achieved the highest growth rate of any region in 2025, driven particularly by agriculture and industry. One of China’s least developed regions, Tibet has maintained a growth rate well above the national average in recent years as it strives to catch up to the rest of the country. Tibet’s 2026 goal of “above 7 percent” reflects this trend.
Hainan, meanwhile, has kept its 2025 target of 6 percent despite missing the mark by a wide margin, its local economy growing only 4 percent from 2024. This target, ambitious given the underperformance in 2025, likely stems from the fact that the province launched as an island-wide special customs zone in December 2025, which removes import duties on 74 percent of goods entering from outside China. This latest development comes five years after it was announced Hainan would be turned into a Free Trade Port, which has been accompanied by the introduction of a raft of low-tax policies and other incentive programs for select industries in the interim years.
Read more:
- How Companies Can Leverage the 30% Added Value Rule in Hainan
- Beyond Zero Tariffs – What Hainan’s New Customs Zone Means for Industry, Investors, and the Island
The government hopes that the launch of the customs zone and existing low-tax policies will attract investment to key industries, such as pharmaceuticals and food processing, and aid in turning the island into a Southeast Asian shipping hub that could one day rival Hong Kong and Singapore. With a commitment to maintain an annual average growth rate of 6 percent until 2030, the province will be under immense pressure to boost business and trade activity and overcome challenges constraining trade and investment.
| Regional GDP Growth Rates and Future Growth Targets (Chinese Mainland) | ||||
| Province/region/municipality | 2025 growth rate | 2025 growth target | 2026 growth target | 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) target |
| Anhui | 5.5% | Above 5.5% | 5-5.5% | Annual average growth of 5–5.5% |
| Beijing | 5.4% | Around 5% | Around 5% | Average growth of 4.5–5%, striving to achieve better |
| Chongqing | 5.3% | Around 6% | Above 5% | Reach a GDP of RMB 4 trillion by 2030 |
| Fujian | 5% | 5–5.5% | Around 5%, striving to achieve better | Annual average growth of around 5% |
| Gansu | 5.8% | Around 5.5% | Around 5%, striving to achieve better | Annual average growth of above 5% |
| Guangdong | 3.9% | Around 5% | 4.5–5% | Annual average growth of around 5% |
| Guangxi | 5.1% | Around 5% | Around 5% | Annual average of around 5% growth |
| Guizhou | 4.9% | Around 5.5% | Around 5% | Annual average growth of around 5%, with GDP breaking RMB 3 trillion |
| Hainan | 4% | Above 6% | Above 6% | Annual average growth of above 6% |
| Hebei | 5.6% | Above 5% | Above 5% | None specified |
| Heilongjiang | 4.2% | Around 5% | 4.5–5% | None specified |
| Henan | 5.6% | Around 5.5% | Around 5%, striving to achieve better | Annual average growth of around 5% |
| Hubei | 5.5% | Around 6% | 5.5%, striving to achieve better | None specified |
| Hunan | 4.8% | Around 5.5% | Around 5% | Annual average growth of 5–5.5% |
| Jiangsu | 5.3% | Above 5% | 5% | Annual average growth of around 5% |
| Jiangxi | 5.2% | Around 5% | 5–5.5% | None specified |
| Jilin | 5% | Around 5.5% | Around 5% | Annual average growth of above 5% |
| Liaoning | 3.7% | Above 5% | Around 4.5% | Annual average growth of around 5% |
| Inner Mongolia | 4.7% | Around 6% | Around 5% | None specified |
| Ningxia | 5.3% | Around 5.5% | Around 5% | None specified |
| Qinghai | 4.1% | Around 4.5% | Around 4.5%, striving to achieve better | None specified |
| Shaanxi | 5.1% | Around 5% | Around 5% | Annual average growth rate of around 5% |
| Shandong | 5.5% | Above 5% | Above 5%, striving to achieve better | None specified |
| Shanghai | 5.4% | Around 5% | Around 5% | Annual average growth of around 5% |
| Shanxi | 4% | Around 5% | 4.5–5% | None specified |
| Sichuan | 5.5% | Above 5.5% | Around 5.5% | None specified |
| Tianjin | 4.8% | Around 5% | 4.5%, striving to achieve better | None specified |
| Xinjiang | 5.5% | Around 6% | 5.5–6% | Average annual growth rate of 5.5–6% |
| Tibet | 7% | Above 7%, striving for 8% | Above 7% | None specified |
| Yunnan | 4.1% | Around 5% | Around 4.5% | None specified |
| Zhejiang | 5.5% | Around 5.5% | 5–5.5%, striving to achieve better | None specified |
| Source: Provincial, regional, and municipal statistics bureaus, annual development plans. | ||||
With 2026 marking the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan (FYP), the national development blueprint that will be implemented from 2026 to 2030, a handful of regions have also released annual average growth targets for this period.
While national five-year plans do not typically include numerical annual growth targets – the 14th FYP called for annual GDP growth to remain within a “reasonable range, with proposals made for each year as appropriate” – the regional annual growth targets could indicate that the country will seek to maintain its current growth trajectory until 2030. The lowest annual growth rate for the 15th FYP period currently proposed is 4.5 percent – in Beijing – while most hover around 5 to 5.5 percent and a few are aiming for as high as 6 percent. These figures are provisional, but they exceed the speed required for China’s GDP to reach the forecast RMB 170 trillion (US$24.6 trillion) by 2030, as proposed by Premier Li Qiang at the China International Import Expo (CIIE) in November, which would require an annual average growth rate of just under 4 percent.
Further, the 15th FYP Proposals, released in October 2025, aims for China’s per capita GDP to reach the level of a moderately developed country (that is, exceeding US$20,000) and to double from 2020 levels by 2035 at constant 2020 prices. China’s per capita GDP in 2020 was RMB 72,447, or approximately US$10,504.
In an official Q&A, the government estimates that GDP will need to grow by an average of 4.17 percent each year until 2035, when accounting for a likely population decrease of 0.2 percent annually over this period.
Understanding the provincial growth figures
China’s regional data points to a shift in the layout of China’s industrial growth and economic development. As provinces with a reliance on traditional manufacturing, such as Liaoning and Heilongjiang, struggle to pivot to higher value industries, the more diversified eastern mega-economies are increasingly turning to high-end technology and emerging industries to sustain growth.
This is exemplified by the difference in growth rates between the country’s two biggest regional GDPs: Jiangsu and Guangdong. The two provinces are similarly reliant on manufacturing and industry in terms of local GDP share, but whereas Jiangsu exceeded its growth target, Guangdong fell short. While Guangdong is also fostering the development of emerging and high-tech industries, its reliance on traditional, consumer-facing manufacturing, such as electronics, home appliances, and automobiles, made it vulnerable to the dual shock of weak domestic demand and external tariff volatility. In 2025, its exports slowed sharply to just 2.5 percent year-on-year from 8.4 percent growth in 2024. Considering the province contributes to over 20 percent of China’s total foreign trade, this is likely to have had a considerable drag on the local economy.
By contrast, many of Jiangsu’s largest companies are business-focused, which can leverage the upward momentum of advanced and high-end manufacturing in the Yangtze River Delta. The province’s high-tech sector also flourished in 2025, with high-tech industries accounting for 52.1 percent of the province’s total industrial output of companies with an annual income of over RMB 20 million. Additionally, the added value of high-tech manufacturing of companies increased by 11.9 percent from 2024, compared with 6.2 percent in Guangdong.
The latest data also suggests that the national government’s push for the “gradient transfer” of labor-intensive industries from east to west is beginning to bear fruit. Western regions such as Gansu, Shaanxi, and Xinjiang are posting high economic growth rates, driven in large part by rapid growth in manufacturing output. In 2025, Gansu’s manufacturing output increased 9.3 percent year-on-year, while in Xinjiang it grew 11.2 percent. Western provinces are also at the forefront of China’s renewables development, with substantial buildout of solar and wind in particular driving growth and lowering costs of production.
China’s changing regional economic landscape has profound implications for foreign companies’ investment and expansion decisions. The rapid growth recorded in less-developed provinces means the underlying infrastructure and supply chains for industrial development are maturing, offering more strategically robust opportunities for relocation or expansion in these provinces, especially for cost-sensitive and energy-intensive industries.
The uneven growth recorded across the country is also a sign of potential challenges on the horizon, but this could bring about more targeted policies and preferential measures to support key industries. Meanwhile, China’s overall economic slow-down has already become a long-term consideration for investors deliberating where and whether to invest.
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