BEIJING -- China's economy continued to improve in the third quarter of this year, with new growth drivers gaining momentum, official high-frequency data on consumption, trade and investment showed Sunday.

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.

In September, offline consumption payments increased 3.1 percent from a year earlier, up 0.5 percentage points from August, marking three consecutive months of growth.

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 issuance of new special-purpose bonds rose 50.2 percent year on year in September, 43.6 percentage points faster than the August level, the data showed.

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 and 50.4 percent year on year last month.

Capital investment in frontier sectors such as artificial intelligence and humanoid robots surged 184.1 percent year on year in the third quarter and 198.7 percent year on year in September, the data showed.

"Investment in frontier fields such as artificial intelligence has remained strong, supporting current growth while building momentum for the development of new quality productive forces," said Wei Ying, deputy director of the center's big data development department.

China has targeted 2026 growth at 4.5 to 5 percent and will strive for even better results in practice. In the first half of the year, the country's gross domestic product grew 4.7 percent year on year.

In another sign of a firming economy, China's manufacturing activity returned to expansionary territory in September, while non-manufacturing activity rebounded markedly. The purchasing managers' index for China's manufacturing sector stood at 50.1 last month, while the business activity index for the non-manufacturing sector reached 50.2.