China's economy continued to improve in Q3

China's economy continued to improve in the third quarter, with new growth drivers gaining momentum, latest official data on consumption, trade and investment showed.

Consumer activity continued to recover, with offline consumption payments up 2.6 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, accelerating by 0.7 percentage points from the second quarter, according to data released by the State Information Center under the National Development and Reform Commission.

The data also showed that the weight carried by cargo ships departing from and arriving at major Chinese ports rose 43.1 percent and 0.3 percent year-on-year, respectively, in the third quarter.

On investment, the value of contracts awarded for projects related to new infrastructure, including computing power, data and networks, increased 34.2 percent year-on-year in the third quarter. Capital investment in frontier sectors such as artificial intelligence and humanoid robots surged 184.1 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, the data showed.