mao shengyong, spokesman of the national bureau of statistics (nbs), introduces the operation of the national economy from january to february at a press conference held by the state council information office on march 14. in the january-february period, the added value of industries above the designated size increased by 5.3%, while excluding the spring festival, the added value increased by 6.1%. investment in fixed assets nationwide (excluding rural households) reached 4.4849 trillion yuan, up 6.1 percent year-on-year and up 0.2 percentage points from the previous year. retail sales of consumer goods totaled 660.64 billion yuan, up 8.2% year on year, unchanged from december last year.
experts said that domestic demand grew steadily and the structure of the economy continued to improve, with a number of macroeconomic data highlighting a good start to the economy. while downward pressure on the economy remains, several leading indicators point to a positive trend.
the economy shows a good trend in the new year
"from january to february, the economy was operating within a reasonable range, continuing a general trend of steady and steady growth." 'most of the indicators are stable, and some are still improving,' mr. mao said.
in the january-february period, the added value of industries above designated size increased by 5.3% year on year, down by 0.4% from the previous december. but excluding the impact of the lunar new year holiday, growth was 6.1 percent, up 0.4 percentage points from december.
in terms of investment, from january to february, china's fixed asset investment (excluding rural households) reached 4,484.9 billion yuan, up by 6.1% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 0.2 percentage points higher than that of the whole year last year. investment in the tertiary sector grew by 6.5%, up by 1.0 percentage points over the previous year, including infrastructure investment, which grew by 4.3%, up by 0.5 percentage points over the previous year.
"infrastructure investment growth has bottomed out since october. the increase in local government bond issuance in the first two months of this year has clearly supported infrastructure investment. wen bin, chief researcher at china minsheng bank, pointed out that the total issuance of local government bonds was 782.14 billion yuan in the first two months of this year, up from 28.56 billion yuan in the same period last year.
in terms of consumption, from january to february, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 6606.4 billion yuan, up by 8.2% year-on-year. china's online retail sales totaled 1398.3 billion yuan, up 13.6 percent year-on-year. among them, the online retail sales of physical goods reached 1090.1 billion yuan, up 19.5%, accounting for 16.5% of the total retail sales of consumer goods, 1.6 percentage points higher than the same period last year.
"overall, investment and consumption showed a steady rise in domestic demand." 'from the perspective of investment, the growth rate of investment has shown a trend of stabilization and recovery since last september,' mr. mao said. in terms of consumption, in the first two months of this year, the total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 7.1% in real terms, 0.5 percentage point faster than that in december last year.
zhang yu, chief macro analyst at huacun securities, said that economic data from january to february showed that the effect of previous counter-cyclical adjustment policies was beginning to show. the decline in automobile consumption on the demand side narrowed, leading to signs of overall social consumption stabilizing. according to sun chuanwang, an associate professor at the school of economics at xiamen university, both the consumption and investment data were slightly higher than expected, which to some extent indicates that the policy effect of promoting consumption and reducing taxes in the fourth quarter of 2018 is being transmitted to the real economy.
the optimization of economic structure continues
the data from january to february also showed that the trend of structural optimization continued in both the production and demand sides.
in terms of production, new industries and new products grew rapidly. from january to february, the added value of strategic emerging industries increased by 10.1 percent year-on-year, 4.8 percentage points faster than that of all industries above designated size.
in the january-february period, the growth rate of manufacturing value-added increased slightly compared with december last year. in terms of the composition of the manufacturing industry, smart home appliances are growing fast, and other advanced manufacturing industries, representing the high-tech manufacturing industry, are also accelerating. from the perspective of the service sector, the growth momentum of the modern service sector is good, with the information transmission, software and information technology services maintaining a relatively high growth rate of 26.5 percent.
in terms of investment, investment in the tertiary industry and high-tech industries grew rapidly.
"on the demand side, private investment grew at a fast pace, up 7.5 percent. the growth rate of investment in the tertiary industry, the social sector and the field of industrial technological transformation has been accelerated or maintained at a relatively high rate. "said mao shengyong.
in terms of consumption, consumption of upgraded goods grew rapidly.
"while maintaining stability, the pace of economic restructuring and upgrading towards high-quality development will continue to advance." "said mao shengyong.
policies supported steady growth in a number of areas
looking ahead, experts said that although downward pressure on the economy remains, china's economy will maintain a stable and healthy operation and expand in a positive direction with the implementation of policies such as streamlining administration, reducing taxes and fees, and counter-cyclical adjustment.
according to some leading indicators, the consumer confidence index rose 2.3 points in february from january, and the new orders index in the pmi(china's manufacturing purchasing managers' index) also rose 1.0 percentage points in february from january, reflecting an improvement in the demand side, mao said. total planned investment in new projects rose 4.9% in the january-february period from a year earlier. "we can expect domestic demand to continue to grow steadily."
morgan stanley huaxin securities chief economist steven zhang thinks, from the "infrastructure repair short board" start steady growth last year to "six stability the steady growth in the round, since to jiangfei tax cuts than expected, in terms of stability, and promote the real economy confidence has obvious effect, a sustainable future policy effect will drive the investment consumption data improved gradually stabilized.
wen believes that this year, 2.15 trillion yuan of special bonds will be issued by local governments, a substantial increase of 800 billion yuan over last year. in addition, the cooperation between the government and social capital will be promoted in an orderly manner, indicating the government's renewed support attitude after the reorganization and standardization of ppp. that means infrastructure will be a growth driver this year.
on the consumer side, mr. mao said march's consumer demand was likely to be better than the previous year, and that overall consumption had maintained a steady growth trend.
zhang jun believes that the power of the proactive fiscal policy in reducing taxes and fees will form a certain support for consumption, and the implementation of the newly revised individual income tax law will release consumption potential to some extent. encouraging the development of new consumption formats and promoting the integrated development of online and offline consumption can also make the consumption environment more convenient for residents and improve their consumption motivation from the side.
in addition, mao shengyong pointed out that in the future, the tax reduction and fee reduction policies supporting the real economy and the development of micro businesses will be gradually implemented, and the growth of manufacturing industry will still be supported by policies.
source: china financial information network