BEIJING, Dec 26 (Reuters) - China's industry ministry expects output of large industrial companies to have increased 5.9% in 2025 compared with 2024, state broadcaster CCTV said on Friday.
That would be a slight pickup on 5.8% growth in 2024 but below the 6% pace of the first 11 months of 2025, based on data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.
Industrial output, which covers industrial firms with annual revenue of at least 20 million yuan ($2.85 million), recorded growth of 4.8% in November,
the weakest monthly year-on-year rise since August 2024.
Waning economic growth has prompted some analysts to call for new government efforts to shore up domestic demand and address the prolonged property crisis, and for the manufacturing giant to reduce its reliance on exports.
Chinese policymakers have acknowledged the need to balance supply and demand, and have pledged fiscal measures to boost consumption and investment next year.
The country's top leaders have also vowed stronger efforts to achieve technological self-reliance amid intensifying rivalry with the United States over dominance in advanced technology, and are backing their ambition with state resources.
At the annual national industrial work conference in Beijing this week, officials pledged to deliver major breakthroughs in building a "modern industrial system" anchored by advanced manufacturing, with a focus on sectors such as integrated circuits, low-altitude economy, aerospace and biomedicine, an industry ministry statement showed on Friday.
The statement comes after China launched on Friday a national venture capital fund aimed at guiding trillions of yuan of capital into "key hard technologies" such as quantum technology and brain-computer interfaces.
On artificial intelligence, the industry ministry said it will expand efforts to help small and medium-sized enterprises adopt the technology, while fostering new intelligent agents and AI-native companies in key industries.
Officials also vowed to "firmly curb" deflationary price wars, dubbed "involution", referring to excessive and low-return competition among firms that erodes profits.
($1=7.00 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Yukun Zhang, Ethan Wang and Ryan Woo; Editing by Neil Fullick and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
