Industrial production continues to rebound, and the unemployment rate is generally stable
The national economy continued its recovery in May (Ruijing)
On June 15th, the national economic operations in May released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that China's current resumption of production, business, and business resumes solid progress, production demand continues to improve, employment prices are generally stable, positive changes have accumulated, and the national economy has gradually recovered.
Experts analyzed and predicted that the consumer market will gradually return to normal in the next stage, and the industrial economy will continue to maintain a steady recovery.
Main economic indicators continue to improve
Statistics from the Bureau of Statistics show that the main economic indicators continued to improve in May, and the economy continued to recover.
Industrial production continues to pick up. In May, the added value of industries above designated size nationwide increased by 4.4% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 0.5 percentage points faster than in April. From January to May, the added value of the industrial enterprises above designated size fell by 2.8% year-on-year, which was 2.1 percentage points narrower than that from January to April.
The growth rate of the service industry production index changed from negative to positive. In May, the national service industry production index increased by 1% year-on-year, and fell by 4.5% in April. From January to May, the service industry production index fell by 7.7% year-on-year, a decrease of 2.2 percentage points from January to April.
Market sales gradually picked up. In May, the total retail sales of social consumer goods was 3137.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.8%, a decrease of 4.7 percentage points from April. From January to May, the total retail sales of social consumer goods was 1387.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 13.5%, a decrease of 2.7 percentage points from January to April.
The decline in fixed asset investment has narrowed significantly. From January to May, national fixed asset investment (excluding farmers) was 199.494 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 6.3%, a decrease of 4.0 percentage points from January to April.
The increase in consumer prices fell. In May, national consumer prices rose by 2.4% year-on-year, a decrease of 0.9 percentage points from April. From January to May, national consumer prices rose 4.1% year-on-year.
The unemployment rate in urban surveys is generally stable, and new employment has decreased slightly. In May, the unemployment rate of urban surveys nationwide was 5.9%, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from April. The surveyed unemployment rate in 31 major cities and towns was 5.9%, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from April. From January to May, there were 4.6 million new jobs in cities and towns across the country, a decrease of 1.37 million compared with the same period last year.
Fast-growing consumer goods
Zhang Min, a statistician at the Department of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that as the domestic epidemic prevention and control situation continued to consolidate, the pace of business resumption and business resumption was accelerated, and the order of life of residents was obviously restored. Especially under the promotion of various policies such as expanding domestic demand and promoting consumption, residents' consumption has continued to improve, and the decline in market sales has narrowed for three consecutive months.
The consumer market continued to improve gradually, and the retail scale of commodities was close to the level of the same month last year. In May, retail sales of goods fell by 0.8% year-on-year, a decrease of 3.8 percentage points from April. Among the retail value of units above designated size, nearly 80% of the commodities achieved year-on-year growth, and most retail sales improved compared with April.
The consumption upgrading commodities maintained rapid growth. In May, the retail sales of automobiles above designated size increased by 3.5% year-on-year, the second highest value since May 2018; the retail sales of cosmetics and sports entertainment products above designated size increased by 12.9% and 15.4%, respectively. The growth rate was 9.4 and 3.8 percentage points faster than that in April; the retail sales of communications equipment increased by 11.4%, and continued to maintain double-digit rapid growth.
The growth rate of online retail sales of physical goods continued to accelerate. From January to May, the national online retail sales of physical goods increased by 11.5% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 2.9 percentage points faster than that from January to April; the online retail sales of physical goods accounted for 24.3% of the total retail sales of consumer goods, an increase of 5.4 compared with the same period last year percentage point.
Zhang Min said that overall, driven by the gradual restoration of residents' living order and the effective implementation of various consumer promotion policies, the market sales situation has been further consolidated. In the next stage, with the solid promotion of the "six stability" work, the continuous implementation of the "six guarantees" task and the implementation of the strategy of expanding domestic demand, the consumer market will gradually return to normal.
High-speed growth of emerging industrial products
In May, with the further advancement of resumption of production and industrial production, industrial production continued to rebound. As of May 27, 67.4% of the enterprises reached more than 80% of the normal production level, an increase of 6.6 percentage points from the end of April.
Production in most industries and products continued to recover, and emerging products maintained rapid growth. In view of different industries, in May, among the 41 major industries, 30 industries realized a year-on-year increase in value added, and the number of industries increased by 2 from the previous month, with an increase of 73.2%. In terms of products, among the 612 industrial products included in the statistics, the output of 344 products achieved growth, with an increase of 56.2%; some emerging products continued to maintain rapid growth, 3D printing equipment, smart watches, integrated circuit wafers, charging piles, etc. The growth rate is above 70%.
In addition, both the equipment manufacturing industry and the raw material industry have accelerated their growth. In May, the added value of the equipment manufacturing industry increased by 9.5% year-on-year, and the growth rate accelerated by 0.2 percentage points from the previous month; the growth rate of the added value of the raw materials industry accelerated from 3.5% last month to 5.5%.
Changjiang Yuan, deputy director of the Department of Industry of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that current industrial production is generally recovering well, but there are still many difficulties and uncertainties that deserve attention. First, the strength of the industry and product recovery has weakened. 25 of the 41 industries have experienced a decline in growth rate or an increase in decline. The product growth has declined from the previous month. Second, the consumer goods industry experienced a decline. The growth rate changed from a growth of 0.7% last month to a decline of 0.6%. Apparel, furniture, culture, education, beauty, leather and footwear industries fell between 5% and 11.4%. The third is insufficient export orders. The value of industrial export delivery has decreased from an increase to a decrease of 1.4% year-on-year. The export delivery value of some industries that account for a relatively high proportion of exports has fallen by more than 10%. He believes that the next step should continue to do a good job of "six stability", implement the "six guarantees" task, promote tax reduction and fee reduction, encourage and help foreign trade companies to develop the domestic market, and help small and medium-sized enterprises that have been hit hard by the epidemic. Continue to consolidate the steady recovery of the industrial economy.
Xu Peiyu