China Industrial Capacity Utilization Hits 2-Year Low

China’s industrial capacity utilization rate fell to 73.6 percent in the first quarter of 2026 from 74.1 percent in the same period a year earlier. This marked the lowest reading since the first quarter of 2024, driven by lower production across the three major categories, such as the mining industry (72.1 percent vs 74.6 percent in Q1 2025), manufacturing industry (73.9 percent vs 74.1 percent), and electricity, heat, gas, and water supply (71.9 percent vs 73.6 percent). Compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, industrial capacity utilization was at 74.9 percent, or 1.3 percentage points lower. In 2025, capacity utilization averaged at 74.4 percent, down 0.6 percentage points in the same period a year ago.