The "Three New" economy encompasses activities built around new industries, new business formats, and new business models. According to recently released data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the added value of China's "Three New" economy in 2025 reached 25.7869 trillion yuan, a nominal increase of 6.2% year-on-year, outpacing the nominal growth rate of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2.2 percentage points.
The share of the "Three New" economy in GDP has been steadily rising, climbing from 15.7% in 2017 to 18.39% in 2025. This shift in figures clearly charts the solid progress of China's economic transformation from old to new growth drivers. The sustained expansion of the "Three New" economy benefits from demand-side pull, supply-side push, and institutional support. On the supply side, the maturation of technologies such as big data, cloud computing, 5G, and artificial intelligence has significantly lowered the costs of information collection, processing, and transactions, constantly enriching application scenarios like the platform economy, sharing economy, and intelligent manufacturing.
On the demand side, China's population of over 1.4 billion and its middle-income group of more than 400 million people highlight the advantages of its super-large market. Even capturing a fraction of these users can provide a scale base sufficient for survival and iteration for new industries, formats, and models. The same innovative technology can move from the "laboratory" to the vast market in China at a faster pace and lower cost.
At the institutional level, policy stability has created an orderly environment for the growth of the "Three New" economy. From strategic emerging industries to future industries, the policy stance has consistently been to encourage innovation and regulate development, giving the market ample room for trial and error and adjustment while maintaining security bottom lines.
The robust development of the "Three New" economy vividly illustrates China's industrial structure upgrade from labor-intensive and resource-intensive to technology-intensive and knowledge-intensive. The increasing share of the "Three New" economy in GDP signifies the continuous appreciation of human capital, the steady accumulation of technological strength, and the improving innovation ecosystem. It also indicates that economic growth is increasingly relying on the enhancement of total factor productivity.
Macroeconomic structural optimization ultimately translates into micro-level individual experiences. The "Three New" economy not only provides more efficient production tools for the supply side but also offers richer products and services for the consumer side. It significantly reduces information costs, time costs, and transaction costs, thereby improving transaction efficiency.
Currently, the transformation from old to new growth drivers is at a critical juncture, and sustained efforts are needed to ensure the stable and long-term development of the "Three New" economy. First, it is essential to orderly drive the transformation and upgrade of traditional industries. Traditional industries carry a large amount of employment and should be "revitalized" through technological upgrades, digital empowerment, and green transformation, rather than being simply phased out.
Second, there is a need to actively cultivate and expand new application scenarios. New scenarios serve as testing grounds for technology implementation and concrete carriers of market demand. As scenarios become more diverse, new technologies find their "place of use," enabling companies to continuously iterate products and services based on real market feedback, forming a positive cycle between supply and demand and injecting internal momentum into the "Three New" economy.
Third, maintaining inclusive and prudent regulation is crucial. The "Three New" economy, characterized by cross-sector integration and diverse business models, presents greater regulatory challenges. It is necessary to avoid both "over-regulation that stifles growth" and "laissez-faire that leads to chaos." Inclusive and prudent regulation does not mean hands-off management; it involves establishing reasonable rules based on the development laws of the "Three New" economy, allowing innovation to flourish freely within safe boundaries.
Finally, strengthening factor support and guarantees is vital. On one hand, investment in emerging technology research and development should be increased, and channels for talent and capital to flow into the "Three New" economy should be smoothed. On the other hand, it is important to strengthen intellectual property protection, improve fair market access rules, maintain a healthy competitive order, and effectively enhance the development quality of the "Three New" economy.
China has already accumulated a solid foundation in the "Three New" economy. It is an opportune time to build on this momentum. The country's complete industrial system, super-large market advantages, and continuously strengthening innovation capabilities are its unique assets for developing the "Three New" economy. By grasping the development direction, maintaining strategic focus, and steadily advancing, the "Three New" economy is poised for an even brighter future.
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