China's recently released economic data for the first half of the year reveals that new growth drivers, represented by advanced manufacturing, the digital and intelligent economy, and modern services, contributed to over 40% of the economic expansion. These dynamic figures outline the trajectory of China's economy towards innovation and quality, reflecting the "global value" of the nation's continuously released innovation dividends.
China's innovative achievements are accelerating their global reach, increasing the supply of accessible and inclusive technology for worldwide development. In the first six months, China's foreign trade volume surpassed 25 trillion yuan for the first time during this period in history. Behind this scale increase is the ongoing optimization of the trade structure. According to Chinese customs statistics, exports of mechanical and electrical products grew by 20.1%, while exports of high-tech products surged by 39%. Exports of industrial robots increased by 18.6%, reaching 141 countries and regions, and over ten thousand intelligent bionic robots were exported. A growing number of high-end, intelligent, and green Chinese products are accelerating their journey to the global market, significantly lowering the threshold for applying new technologies worldwide.
China's continuous leap in innovation capability is injecting new momentum into global industrial upgrading. In the first half, the value-added of high-tech manufacturing above a designated size in China increased by 13.3% year-on-year, significantly outpacing the overall industrial growth rate. New quality productive forces are accelerating their transformation from isolated sector highlights into new industrial clusters that support economic growth. In this process, China's contribution to global innovation has evolved from a singular model of "product export" to a systematic approach of "industrial empowerment."
Taking new energy vehicles as an example, BYD is investing in building a new energy passenger vehicle production base in Hungary. Chery has launched a new production line at a factory jointly operated with the local automaker Ebro in Spain. XPeng's third localized production base globally has commenced operations in Malaysia. The overseas expansion model of Chinese automakers is advancing towards integrated "capacity, technology, and ecosystem" exports.
Amid the deep adjustment of global industrial chains, China's comprehensive industrial system and abundant innovation capacity, through deeply integrated localized production and ecosystem co-construction, are helping more countries build stable, efficient, and resilient modern industrial systems.
China's commitment to openness and collaboration is expanding the vast space for global innovation cooperation. Today, the cumulative global downloads of China's open-source large AI models have exceeded 10 billion. Major scientific facilities like those for controlled nuclear fusion and quantum technology are open to the world, and the Tiangong space station will also welcome foreign astronauts. Extensive practice has proven that China's technologies and products in emerging fields bring opportunities, not shocks, and empowerment, not threats, to the world.
Global innovation resources are accelerating their convergence in China. Data from China's Ministry of Commerce shows that in the first five months of this year, actual utilized foreign investment in China's high-tech industries grew by 19.4% year-on-year, accounting for nearly 40% of the nation's total utilized foreign capital, an increase of 9.4 percentage points from the same period last year. More and more foreign enterprises are establishing R&D centers and regional headquarters in China, deeply embedding themselves in China's innovation chain and achieving a strategic shift from "Made in China" to "Created in China."
The high-intensity market competition and rapid pace of innovation iteration are profoundly reshaping the global competitiveness of multinational corporations, with the Chinese market now regarded within the industry as "the world's most rigorous training ground."
From technological inclusivity to industrial empowerment and ecosystem co-construction, China is continuously transforming the certainty of its own high-quality development into a "new driving force" for global common development. Looking ahead, China will more actively integrate into the international innovation and industrial division of labor system, promote the development of an open world economy, jointly safeguard the stability and smooth flow of global industrial and supply chains, and provide increasingly more innovation dividends for the world economy.
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