Reading the world and bridging cultures: Xi's story with books

China's economy got off to a solid start in the first quarter of the year, with GDP expanding 5.0 percent year on year. Across the board, key indicators showed encouraging performance. Four keywords shed light on the quality and underlying strength of the country's first-quarter economic performance.

People visit the sixth China International Consumer Products Expo (CICPE) in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, April 18, 2026. The sixth China International Consumer Products Expo (CICPE), a key gateway into China's vast consumer market and a platform for China to offer more quality consumer products to the rest of the world, concluded in the tropical island province of Hainan Saturday.

China recently unveiled its economic performance for the first quarter of 2026. Its GDP reached 33.4193 trillion yuan ($4.9 trillion), up 5 percent year on year in real terms, accelerating by 0.5 percentage points from the fourth quarter of last year.

At dawn on April 20, fishermen were hauling up abalone cages belonging to a company at an abalone breeding area off Houwan village in Tailu town, Lianjiang county, southeast China's Fujian Province, for transfer to Rongcheng in east China's Shandong Province to escape the summer heat.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mozambican President Daniel Francisco Chapo held talks in Beijing on Tuesday, and the two heads of state agreed to upgrade bilateral ties to a China-Mozambique community with a shared future in the new era.