#Switzerland #Chinese Economy #UnionPay #Davos #Davos 2026

UnionPay at Davos 2026: China's Economic Resilience

UnionPay, a key player in the global financial services sector, was a prominent participant in the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) held in Davos, Switzerland. On January 21, 2026, Chairman Dong Junfeng took the stage to address the topic, "Is the Chinese Economy Fully Emerged?" During this engaging panel discussion, Dong exchanged insights with fellow panelists on critical aspects such as China's economic development trends, innovation-led growth, and the nation's contributions to the global economy.

The dialogue underscored the robust resilience and growth potential of China's economy, with UnionPay's role being pivotal in facilitating internal economic circulation and driving quality productive forces while promoting international economic collaboration.

Resilience in the Face of Challenges

Despite facing escalating global economic risks and uncertainties, the distinctive trait of resilience continues to define China's economy. According to recent statistics, China's GDP grew by 5% year-on-year in 2025, exceeding 140 trillion CNY. Dong emphasized that this sustained growth is bolstered by multiple favorable factors, including long-term government development strategies, effective policy guidance, increased market vitality, and significant domestic demand.

Among these, the latter two aspects stand out as crucial drivers. Politically, the Chinese government is reinforcing a new development paradigm that emphasizes mutual reinforcement of domestic and international circulation.

The 15th Five-Year Plan explicitly includes special initiatives aimed at stimulating consumption and enhancing the provision of high-quality goods and services, setting a solid foundation for sustained economic growth.

New Trends in Consumer Preferences

Emerging rapidly are new consumption trends, business models, and use cases. UnionPay's data highlights the consistent expansion of digital payments in China's consumer sector; innovative business formats like live-streaming e-commerce, cross-border e-commerce, instant retail, and the sharing economy are gaining substantial traction. Spending on winter sports and tourism, for instance, rose by over 50%, while cross-border payments saw a steady increase with inbound spending jumping by over 60%. These patterns signal a shift in household spending from traditional goods towards diversified, high-quality, and intelligent use cases.

Structural changes in consumer spending are redefining the drivers of economic growth, as consumption now encompasses both goods and services rather than solely focusing on tangible products. This shift has facilitated a move towards lighter, customized manufacturing and expedited innovations in product delivery. UnionPay is leveraging its strengths in payment solutions to expand the consumer market in both volume and quality through technological innovation and service upgrades.

The company has developed an extensive payment network that caters to online and in-store use cases, both domestically and internationally, optimizing payment experiences while reducing transaction costs. These initiatives have effectively unlocked spending potential and provided a crucial boost to commercial vitality, positioning UnionPay as a key accelerator of continued economic growth in China.

AI as a Driver of Quality Production

UnionPay is proactively building an ecosystem that harnesses artificial intelligence (AI), as emerging fields like AI are becoming critical determinants of productivity enhancements and sustained economic growth. Dong pointed out that recent global excitement around AI has led to significant advancements in large language models, multimodal technologies, and intelligent agents, accelerating broad-based AI adoption.

AI enhances efficiency, optimizes models, and transforms ecosystems, providing new quality productivity forces and acting as a disruptive Growth engine, with the payment sector leading the charge in AI application.

By enhancing efficiency, AI aids in cost reduction and boosts productivity across personal operations, business activities, industrial collaboration, and decision-making. A key focus for UnionPay has been developing an intelligent risk control system, where AI-assisted risk control rules offer a robust defense for the secure and compliant advancement of digital payments.

To optimize services, UnionPay has introduced the "Nihao China" app for international visitors in China, offering comprehensive services through intelligent agents utilizing natural language interaction to meet personalized payment needs. AI is redefining industrial sectors by shifting them from passively following instructions to proactively responding to demands, leading to the emergence of new business models.

As key global payment providers venture into agent-based payment solutions, UnionPay is taking a leading role by launching its MCP agent payment service. This service not only combines traditional payment functionalities but also introduces an innovative agent-based payment experience, allowing users to navigate the entire journey from expressing needs to completing payments seamlessly.

Retailers such as UnionPay are also adapting to the transformative nature of the intelligent commerce era. This transition sees businesses evolving from being "experience-driven" to being "data and intelligence-driven." AI enables payments to transcend their traditional roles as mere settlement tools and evolve into fundamental infrastructures required for the intelligent upgrade of economic activities.

UnionPay's approach to payments encompasses cooperation across various stakeholders to explore and build an agent-based payment ecosystem. These initiatives aim to provide a Chinese solution for intelligent payments globally and foster a more open, collaborative, and intelligent payment sector.

Fostering Global Cooperation

UnionPay acts as a bridge connecting the world through payments. Amid increasing uncertainties in trade policies and geopolitical tensions, China remains committed to promoting high-level openness and offering global opportunities as part of its development. As a crucial component of cross-border trade, investments, and interpersonal exchanges, payments have emerged as an essential connection for closer international cooperation.

Dong emphasized that China's sustained economic growth not only benefits the country itself but also contributes to stronger partnerships in other global markets. By fostering a development model characterized by equal cooperation and mutual benefits, China shares the dividends of stable development and economic growth with the world.

Today, China ranks among the top three trading partners for over 150 countries and regions. Significant flows of goods and services to and from developed markets, including high-end manufactured goods, financial services, and pharmaceuticals, have opened vast export opportunities and development prospects for emerging markets.

This has bolstered local employment, facilitated industrial modernization, and improved infrastructure, empowering self-sustaining development capabilities.

Guided by a high-level policy of openness, UnionPay actively implements its international development strategy, which combines the attitudes of "becoming" global and "welcoming" global partners. Nearly 300 million UnionPay cards have been issued in 83 countries and regions outside mainland China, while its acceptance network spans 183 global markets, including more than 75 million international merchants. This has laid the groundwork for a comprehensive and multi-layered global payment network ensuring stable and seamless transactions for investments, trade, and personal exchanges between China and the international community.

In response to the burgeoning trend of digital payments, UnionPay has established an interconnected QR code payment network, promoting connectivity across infrastructure and digital specifications in diverse markets. This aims to tear down barriers in cross-border payments.

To "welcome" international collaboration, China has reinforced institutional openness in the payment sector, enhancing availability and broader global partnerships. Collaborations between UnionPay and leading card schemes, such as American Express, Mastercard, and Visa, in card issuance, acceptance, innovative payments, and infrastructure development, have streamlined transactions within China and significantly facilitated cross-border exchanges.

Meanwhile, UnionPay is actively integrating high-quality national and international resources to create an open and collaborative ecosystem, exploring innovative cooperation models such as Network-to-Network (N2N) and Government-to-Government (G2G) partnerships with card networks, settlement systems, and internet platforms. The goal is to accelerate the development of a new four-party model for cross-border payments that ensures shared benefits and advantageous outcomes for everyone involved.

As China continues to stand out in its vast market and established industrial system, UnionPay is committed to a future that serves the international market. Focusing on high-quality development in the payment sector, it will further deepen technological innovation and accelerate the integration of new technologies like AI into payment services, constantly enhancing the quality and efficiency of service for the real economy. By promoting interconnected and standardized growth in the global payment landscape, UnionPay aims to deliver greater value to partners, merchants, and cardholders worldwide, contributing even more to global economic cooperation and shared prosperity.