On January 23, data released by the Shandong Provincial Bureau of Statistics showed that Shandong's gross domestic product (GDP) for 2025 reached 10,319.7 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year growth of 5.5% calculated at constant prices. Shandong has become the third province nationally, and the first in Northern China, to surpass the 10-trillion-yuan GDP threshold. At a themed press conference series titled "Understanding Shandong's Development Through Data" held by the Shandong Provincial Government Information Office that day, Sun Qisheng, a spokesperson for the provincial government, stated that in 2025, the province solidly advanced the implementation and effectiveness of various policy measures, successfully achieving all major expected targets, and the construction of a crucial economic growth pole in Northern China gained significant momentum. Overall, in 2025, Shandong's economy advanced under pressure, achieving effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth, demonstrating the responsibility and commitment of a major economic province to shoulder a heavyweight role. The "quality" of Shandong's 5.5% GDP growth is substantial: the share of the tertiary sector increased by 0.8 percentage points, contributing 59.1% to economic growth; value-added in the equipment manufacturing industry increased by 11.4% year-on-year, accelerating by 1.4 percentage points compared to the previous year, highlighting its stronger pulling effect; the consumption growth rate was 1.4 percentage points higher than the national average; and the cultivation of new quality productive forces experienced "accelerated emergence." Whether judged by development quality or economic aggregate, Shandong has fully shouldered the heavy responsibility of a "major economic province propping up the national economy."

From both development quality and economic scale perspectives, Shandong has fully borne the heavy responsibility of a "major economic province propping up the national economy." Zhang Lin, Vice President of the Far East Credit Rating Research Institute, stated that the top ten provinces by GDP, occupying nearly 20% of the nation's land area, contribute over 60% of the national GDP. Considering multiple dimensions such as economic scale, industrial system, fiscal and factor support, and innovation capability, major economic provinces serve as the "ballast stone" for national growth and stability, undertaking multiple missions in the new development pattern, including stabilizing growth, strengthening innovation, promoting coordination, ensuring security, and advancing common prosperity. "Propping up the national economy" is not only a reflection of their own development capacity but also an inevitable requirement of national strategic development. Zhang Liquan, a researcher at the Macroeconomic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, stated: "Official sources have repeatedly emphasized that major economic provinces must shoulder a heavyweight role, which also clarifies that an important task of current economic work is to further stimulate economic vitality and increase the economic growth rate. Against this backdrop, major economic provinces should play a leading role in driving economic growth."

The industrial foundation: solid base, new vitality In 2025, China's total GDP exceeded 140 trillion yuan for the first time, with one highlight being the industrial economy becoming a key driver of economic growth. Zhang Yansheng, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, indicated that in 2025, China's equipment manufacturing and high-tech industries experienced robust growth, and economic formats driven by AI (artificial intelligence), along with strong growth in sectors like biomedicine, also became significant contributors to the year's economic growth. As the leading economic and industrial powerhouse in Northern China, Shandong's path of industrial transformation and upgrading is undoubtedly a microcosm of China's industrial development. Shandong is one of the provinces with the most comprehensive range of industrial sectors in China, with revenues from 18 major manufacturing categories ranking among the top five nationally. In 2025, this solid "hard foundation" continued to generate new vitality. The development of high-tech manufacturing is the core pathway to achieving "high-quality development" and "new quality productive forces." By increasing total factor productivity, optimizing the industrial structure, strengthening self-reliance in science and technology, and driving green, low-carbon, and digital transformation, it has become a key lever for overcoming the middle-income trap and building a new security architecture and dual-circulation development pattern. Over the next decade, the high-tech industry has been explicitly positioned as a crucial direction for "recreating a 14-trillion-yuan industry." Against this backdrop, high-tech manufacturing has become the "main stage" for major economic provinces to shoulder their heavyweight role. Zhang Lin said that in 2025, the value-added of China's equipment manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing industries increased by 9.2% and 9.4% year-on-year respectively, with profits growing by 7.7% and 10% respectively, significantly faster than the overall industrial growth. In recent years, the value-added growth rates of Shandong's high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing industries have exceeded 10%, consistently staying above the national average for many years. In 2025, Shandong deepened the implementation of its "Number One Project" for the industrial economy, coordinating efforts to advance the optimization and upgrading of traditional industries, the cultivation and expansion of emerging industries, and the forward-looking layout of future industries, accelerating the shift towards newer and superior industrial development. The value-added of industrial enterprises above the designated size increased by 7.6% year-on-year for the full year. By sector, value-added in equipment manufacturing grew by 11.4%, 3.8 percentage points higher than the industrial average above designated size. Examining specific sectors, Shandong's industrial economy showed "blossoming across multiple points," with standout performances in key areas. Among Shandong's 41 major industrial categories, 36 saw year-on-year growth in value-added, maintaining a growth coverage rate stable above 85%. In terms of operating revenue from industrial enterprises above the designated size in Shandong, compound growth rates in revenue for sectors such as electronic equipment, wood processing, electrical machinery, specialized equipment, and food manufacturing reached 14%–19% or even higher, indicating the rapid growth of new growth drivers. Looking ahead to Shandong's future industrial economic growth trajectory, Zhang Lin stated that the叠加 of multiple favorable factors, including technological transformation plans, the "Ten Strong Industries" initiative, and the strategic positioning of the Green, Low-Carbon, and High-Quality Development Pilot Zone, has given Shandong a cost-performance advantage in achieving accelerated breakthroughs in high-tech manufacturing among major economic provinces: it has a solid traditional industrial base to rely on for upgrades and transformation, coupled with policy support and corporate development capabilities driving the expansion and layout of new industries. Going forward, Shandong's high-tech manufacturing is expected to maintain a growth rate higher than the national average for a certain period, becoming a benchmark for high-quality development in Northern China. Sun Jingjun, Chief Engineer and Second-Level Inspector of the Shandong Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, stated at the press conference that, in the next step, the industrial and information technology system of Shandong will closely focus on the core tasks of stabilizing growth, adjusting structure, and promoting transformation. It will deeply implement stabilization and growth plans for 12 key industries, continuously optimize policy supply, enhance enterprise assistance effectiveness, and coordinate efforts to promote the optimization and upgrading of traditional industries, the cultivation and expansion of emerging industries, and the forward-looking layout of future industries, ensuring a good start to the "15th Five-Year Plan" period and providing solid industrial support for the province's high-quality economic and social development.

Consumption momentum: strong pull, resilient potential If industry is the foundation for Shandong's stable economic growth, then consumption was the primary driver of Shandong's economic growth in 2025. In 2025, Shandong's total retail sales of consumer goods exceeded 4.2 trillion yuan, ranking 3rd nationally by scale, with a growth rate of 5.1%. This was 1.4 percentage points higher than the national average, marking the third consecutive year that its growth rate surpassed the national average. Notably, online consumption growth in Shandong was particularly impressive. In 2025, online retail sales of physical goods by Shandong-based enterprises above the designated size reached 241.76 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.4%, which was 12.0 percentage points higher than the growth rate for all retail sales above the designated size, contributing 2.8 percentage points to the growth of the province's above-designated-size retail sales. To sustain consumption growth, Shandong introduced an "Implementation Plan for Boosting Consumption" early in 2025, accompanied by ten specific action plans covering service consumption, cultural and tourism consumption, sports consumption, and rural consumption, among others. Simultaneously, coordinating with fiscal departments, the province allocated 500 million yuan in provincial funds to support various cities in issuing nearly 5 billion yuan worth of consumption vouchers. In 2025, Shandong deeply implemented special actions to boost consumption, strengthened the linkage between policy incentives and market mechanisms, and focused on advancing the "Five Major Projects": enhancing goods consumption, improving the quality of service consumption, promoting the leap of new forms of consumption, tapping into rural consumption potential, and expanding international consumption. Shandong's consumption growth still possesses resilient potential. Looking at income data, which underpins sustained consumption growth, Shandong made significant efforts in 2025 to increase residents' incomes, fully ensure and improve people's livelihoods, and promote the continuous improvement of living standards. Specifically, the per capita disposable income of residents reached 44,180 yuan, a nominal increase of 5.0% year-on-year. The urban-rural income ratio narrowed to 2.12, 0.02 lower than the same period last year. Looking ahead to the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, Shandong's consumption is expected to maintain relatively rapid growth. At the January 23rd press conference, Guo Hongwei, Second-Level Inspector of the Shandong Provincial Department of Commerce, stated that in the next step, Shandong will improve the long-term mechanism for promoting consumption, optimize the supply of policy measures, strengthen coordinated efforts, steadily promote the replacement of old consumer goods with new ones, and facilitate the formation of an economic development model led by "domestic demand, driven by consumption, and characterized by endogenous growth," thereby making new and greater contributions to the province's high-quality economic and social development.