China refuted on Tuesday the claim that "insufficient domestic demand leads to overcapacity" as inconsistent with the facts in its latest document titled "China’s Position on the So-called Excess Capacity Issue," citing data that its total retail sales of consumer goods reached 1.7 times that of the United States in 2025.
The document highlighted that China is already the world's largest goods consumption market.
Domestic demand has long been the primary engine of China's economy, with its average contribution rate for economic growth reaching 93 percent from 2013 to 2024, according to the document.
In recent years, the slowdown in the growth of total retail sales aligns with the country's transition to a stage of high-quality development and reflects the upgrading of China's consumption structure, the document said, adding that it is neither objective nor comprehensive to view this slowdown as weak domestic demand.
Besides, China never deliberately pursues a trade surplus, and its export growth is not only derived from economies of scale and enhanced innovation capabilities, but also from the demand for green transformation and industrialization development in various countries.
The document also explained that China never deliberately seeks market share in labor-intensive product exports, with the proportion of such exports falling from 20.7 percent in 2012 to 15.1 percent in 2025.
