China industrial output growth at 14-month low

China’s industrial production grew 4.9% year-on-year in October 2025, slowing from a 6.5% increase in the previous month and missing market expectations of 5.5%.

This marked the softest increase since August 2024, due to softer rises in manufacturing activity (4.9% vs 7.3% in September) and mining (4.5% vs 6.4%), partly due to the Golden Week holiday.

Meanwhile, production of electricity, heat, gas, and water accelerated (5.4% vs 0.6%).

Within manufacturing, 29 of 41 major industries recorded growth, including automotive (16.8%), computers and communications (8.9%), railway and shipbuilding (15.2%), ferrous metal smelting and rolling (1.4%), non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling (3.7%), chemical products (7.1%), coal mining and washing (6.5%), oil and gas (1.9%), food manufacturing (2.5%), heat production (5.9%), and textiles (0.2%).

For the first ten months of the year, industrial production rose by 6.1%. On a monthly basis, industrial output climbed by 0.17%.