The team’s most distinctive out-of-consensus view is for China’s current account surplus to rise to 4.2 per cent of GDP this year from 3.6 per cent in 2025.

Goldman Sachs Research expects China’s real GDP to grow by 4.8 per cent in 2026, above the consensus of estimates of 4.5 per cent.
However, structural challenges like labour market weakness remain.
Its forecast for producer price inflation of minus 0.7 per cent is modestly higher than the consensus expectation of minus 1 per cent.
Consumer price inflation is projected to be below 1 per cent this year.

However, structural challenges like low household consumption and labour market weakness remain, Goldman Sachs Research said in a insights piece.

While the housing market’s decline hasn’t yet reached its bottom, the economic drag from a declining property market is expected to lessen.

China’s economy is projected by the financial services firm to grow faster than consensus estimates this year as exports increase and the economic drag from a declining property market lessens.

The Chinese economy has changed significantly in recent years amid trade wars and a prolonged property downturn, wrote Hui Shan, Goldman Sachs Research’s chief China economist, in a recent report.

Both China’s share of US imports and its new property starts—a measure of new residential construction projects—fell last year to levels last seen in the early 2000s.

In light of these shifts, policymakers face the challenge of finding new sources of growth in the coming years, Shan wrote.

“Although Chinese exporters have successfully diversified into non-US markets, supporting our positive outlook for Chinese exports, building a consumption- and services-driven economy will take years, if not decades,” she added.

Goldman Sachs Research’s above-consensus forecast for Chinese economic growth is consistent with its above-consensus projections for monetary and fiscal policy easing, inflation and exports.

Similarly, its forecast for producer price inflation of minus 0.7 per cent is modestly higher than the consensus expectation of minus 1 per cent.

China has been experiencing deflation in its producer price index (PPI) for more than three years. The team expects year-on-year PPI to turn positive in early 2027. Meanwhile, it estimates headline consumer price inflation will largely remain below 1 per cent this year.

Goldman Sachs Research expects price inflation for Chinese exports in US dollar terms to turn positive in 2026, rising to 0.7 per cent from minus 2.7 per cent last year.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

Half of the various industrial sectors produced more than they did last year.

The calendar-adjusted output of the Dutch manufacturing sector was 0.7 per cent higher YoY in November 2025, according to Statistics Netherlands.
Half of the various industrial sectors produced more than they did last year.
Producer confidence in December was above the 20-year average of minus 1.3.
Manufacturers in the textiles, apparel and leather industry were the most negative (minus 4.5).

Producer confidence was less negative in December than the previous month. It stood at minus 1.1, up from minus 1.7 in November. Manufacturers were less negative about their current stocks. Their assessment of the output for the next three months and their current stocks of finished products remained largely unchanged.

Producer confidence in December was above the 20-year average of minus 1.3. Confidence reached an all-time high (10.4) in October 2021 and an all-time low (minus 31.5) in April 2020.

Confidence improved in five of eight of the underlying industrial sectors. However, manufacturers in the textiles, apparel and leather industry were the most negative (minus 4.5).

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)