China News Service, August 14th. The spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics, Fu Linghui, said on the 14th that since July, under the influence of a series of policy measures to coordinate epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, a proactive fiscal policy and a stable currency The policy continued to be effective, the economy overcame the adverse effects of the epidemic and flood, continued to maintain a steady recovery, and major indicators continued to pick up.
On the 14th, the State Council Information Office held a press conference on the operation of the national economy in July 2020, and Fu Linghui introduced the relevant situation at the conference. He pointed out that, judging from the economic performance in July, it can be summarized as two characteristics: one is economic stability and recovery; the other is continuous development towards a positive trend.
Fu Linghui introduced that economic stability recovery is mainly manifested in five aspects: First, production is stable and rising. In terms of industry, the added value of industries above designated size in July increased by 4.8% year-on-year, the growth rate was the same as the previous month; in terms of products and industries, 60% of products and industries achieved growth, of which automobile and electronic pillar industries grew significantly faster. The service industry production index increased by 3.5% year-on-year in July, and the growth rate was 1.2 percentage points higher than the previous month.
The second is the gradual improvement in demand. In terms of consumption, the total retail sales of consumer goods in July fell by 1.1% year-on-year, and the rate of decline narrowed by 0.7 percentage points from the previous month. Among them, from the perspective of retail sales of goods, the retail sales of goods in June dropped by 0.2% year-on-year, and in July it increased by 0.2% year-on-year, which is the first time since the beginning of this year to turn from negative to positive. In terms of investment, investment in fixed assets from January to July fell by 1.6% year-on-year, and the rate of decline narrowed by 1.5 percentage points from January to June.
Third, the employment situation is generally stable. The unemployment rate in the urban survey in July was 5.7%, the same as the previous month. The surveyed unemployment rate of the 25-59 year-old employment subjects was 5.0%, a decrease of 0.2% from the previous month.
Fourth, price increases are moderate. Although due to the influence of the flood, consumer prices in July rose by 2.7% year-on-year, which was a slight increase from the previous month, but overall it was still less than 3%, still a moderate increase.
Fifth, the foreign trade situation is better than expected. National imports and exports in July increased by 6.5% year-on-year, of which exports increased by 10.4%; exports increased year-on-year for four consecutive months, better than expected. Foreign exchange reserves have stabilized at more than US$3.1 trillion, an increase of US$42.1 billion at the end of July compared with the end of June. We see that the economy is gradually recovering.
Fu Linghui said that the positive trend is still continuing, which is mainly manifested in three aspects: First, the trend of industrial upgrading has not changed. From an industrial perspective, among the industries above designated size, high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing increased by 9.8% and 13% respectively year-on-year, which were significantly faster than the growth of the entire industry above designated size. From the perspective of the service industry, the growth trend of the modern service industry is good. In July, the production index of information transmission, software and information technology services increased by 13.7% year-on-year, which was also faster than the growth of the overall service industry.
Second, the new momentum for development continues to increase. Under the impact of the epidemic, online sales, Internet education, and medical services have developed rapidly. The online retail sales of physical goods from January to July increased by 15.7% year-on-year, and the growth rate was faster than that from January to June. At the same time, some new products are growing strongly, such as 3D printing equipment, smart watches, and smart bracelets.
Third, market expectations are improving overall. In July, China's manufacturing PMI was 51.1%, an increase of 0.2 percentage points from the previous month; the non-manufacturing business activity index was 54.2%, and both manufacturing and non-manufacturing PMIs were above the threshold for five consecutive months. These circumstances fully demonstrate that the steady economic recovery continued in July.
Fu Linghui also pointed out that the current international situation is still complicated and severe, and the global epidemic is still spreading. The number of confirmed cases worldwide has exceeded 20 million recently. At the same time, world economic and trade growth has shrunk, and the economic growth of major economies has declined significantly in the second quarter. From a domestic perspective, long-term accumulated structural contradictions, institutional contradictions, and cyclical contradictions are intertwined, and the economic cycle needs to be further smoothed.
In the next step, we must resolutely implement the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, continue to promote the "six stability" work, implement the "six guarantees" task, promote stable and healthy economic development, and strive to achieve the expected development goals for the year.