China industry minister: industrial economy stabilises, NEV shines in Jan-Sept period

SHANGHAI : China’s industry minister said the country’s industrial economy stablised and recovered in the first three quarters of 2023 and the new energy sector, such as electric cars, shined.

“In the fourth quarter, we are confident the industrial economy will keep the recovery momentum,” said Jin Zhuanglong, China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology, in an interview with China state television CCTV.

China’s industrial output in September grew 4.5 per cent from a year earlier, matching the pace in August, as policy support measures stabilised some parts of the world’s second-largest economy.

For the first nine months, car sales in China rose 2.1 per cent to 15.41 million units. Overseas markets remain an important growth area, although an EU probe into China-made EVs may put a damper on exports.

Jin also said the use of artificial intelligence in manufacturing and medical fields, as well as humanoid robots and the metaverse might be important symbols of the scientific and technological revolution in the future, CCTV reported on Saturday.

(This story has been refiled to fix the spelling of ‘CCTV’ in paragraph 5)