Cargo vessels handle foreign trade containers at Lianyungang Port container terminal, East China's Jiangsu Province, in the early morning of October 14, 2026. Photo: CNS Photo

Record-high railway passenger trips in the first three quarters this year have emerged as a tangible sign of reviving service consumption, with a suite of high-frequency indicators across consumption, foreign trade and investment showing China’s economy gained steam in the third quarter. 

Backed by surging spending on services, explosive investment in frontier industries and accelerated fiscal support, China’s economy has demonstrated strong resilience amid complicated external headwinds. The momentum built in the third quarter is laying a solid foundation for the country to meet its full-year economic growth target, Chinese experts said.

The railway sector handled 3.71 billion passenger trips in the first nine months of the year, up 4.8 percent year-on-year and marking a record high for the period, data from China Railway showed on Sunday.

A total of 2,860 tourist trains services operated in the first three quarters, jumping 25.5 percent year-on-year. Among them, 947 customized special trains for concerts and sports events helped drive growth in catering, hotels and tourism.

The surge in railway travel underscores a structural shift in consumption as service spending is taking a larger role in driving activity, Hu Qimu, a professor at the Maritime Silk Road Institute of Huaqiao University, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Besides, big data on offline consumption payments shows total payment value rose 2.6 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, with growth accelerating by 0.7 percentage points from the second quarter. September’s reading climbed further to 3.1 percent year-on-year, up 0.5 percentage points from August, marking the third straight month of accelerating growth.

Foreign trade has maintained solid momentum. China's total imports and exports reached 39.94 trillion yuan ($5.94 trillion) in the January-September period, up 18.8 percent year-on-year, marking the highest level for the same period in five years, data from the General Administration of Customs (GAC) showed on Wednesday.
 
In the third quarter, the tonnage of cargo vessels departing major ports surged 43.1 percent year-on-year, while incoming tonnage edged up 0.3 percent, both improving from the second quarter. In September, outbound and inbound cargo vessel tonnage climbed 53.2 percent and 4.5 percent from a year earlier.

Investment remains another core growth pillar. Issuance of new local government special-purpose bonds rose 50.2 percent year-on-year in September, up 43.6 percentage points from August. Investment in new infrastructure such as computing power hubs and digital networks rose 34.2 percent in the third quarter and 50.4 percent in September. Capital investment into cutting-edge sectors including artificial intelligence and humanoid robots skyrocketed 184.1 percent for the quarter and 198.7 percent in September. 
 
China has completed this year's issuance of ultra-long-term special treasury bonds, bringing the total to 1.3 trillion yuan, after the Ministry of Finance issued such bonds to raise an additional 20 billion yuan on Friday.
 
The economy’s resilience comes from the transition between old and new growth drivers. High-end manufacturing investment has delivered robust gains, while infrastructure spending is shifting toward computing and digital networks rather than traditional projects. The stepped-up bond issuance is helping convert approved funding into real work to underpin growth, Hu said.

"For the fourth quarter, we expect the economy to hold steady and edge higher. The positive factors built through the third quarter will support China in meeting its full-year growth objective, though the transition period still carries inherent challenges," Hu added.