China's Economy Shows Strong Resilience and Great Potential
——Interpretation of China Economic Semi-annual Report (Part 1) Our reporter Xiong Li
In the first half of this year, China's economic development showed a momentum of stabilization while strengthening, and stability while improving.
Experts pointed out that under the background of complex and severe domestic and foreign environments and increasing risk challenges, the good performance of major macroeconomic indicators fully proves that China has a strong economy, a stable chassis, strong resilience and great potential.
Stronger development foundation
In the first half of the year, the effects of my country's macroeconomic policies continued to be released, and indicators such as economic growth, employment, and prices generally improved.
From the perspective of economic growth, in the first half of the year, GDP grew by 12.7% year-on-year, and the two-year average growth rate was 5.3%. The two-year average growth rate was 0.3 percentage points higher than that in the first quarter.
The second quarter increased by 7.9% year-on-year, and the two-year average growth rate was 5.5%, which was 0.5% faster than the average growth rate in the first quarter, and increased by 1.3% from the previous quarter.
Tang Jianwei, chief researcher of the Bank of Communications Financial Research Center, said that this shows that the overall growth momentum of the comprehensive economic growth in the two years has increased.
The current month-on-month growth rate of the economy is relatively close to that of 2019 before the epidemic, and economic operations are expected to return to the state of stable operation before the epidemic.
Employment is the foundation of people's livelihood, connected to economic development on one side and thousands of households on the other.
In the first half of this year, with the steady recovery of the economy and the effective employment priority policy, the overall employment situation in my country has improved.
There were 6.98 million new jobs in urban areas, fulfilling 63.5% of the expected target, and the completion of the new job target was good; the average unemployment rate in the national urban survey was 5.2%, which was lower than the expected target of around 5.5%.
Employment is stable, and prices are also stable.
In the first half of the year, consumer market supply was relatively sufficient, and CPI rose by 0.5%, a decrease of 3.3 percentage points from the same period last year.
"Looking at operational efficiency, we need to look at three'pockets'. One is the government's'pockets', looking at fiscal revenue; the other is the'pockets' of enterprises, looking at corporate profits; and the other is the'pockets' of ordinary people. , Look at the income of urban and rural residents.” Yao Jingyuan, a special researcher of the Counselor’s Office of the State Council, said at a briefing by the State Council Information Office on the 15th.
Judging from the government's "pocket", fiscal revenue continues to increase.
From January to May, the national general public budget revenue increased by 24.2% year-on-year.
From the perspective of the company's "pocket", corporate profits have increased.
From January to May, the total profits of industrial enterprises above designated size increased by 83.4% year-on-year, and the two-year average growth rate was 21.7%. The operating income margin reached 7.11%, an increase of 2.05 percentage points from the same period last year.
From January to May, the total profit of service industry enterprises above designated size increased by 1.5 times year-on-year.
From the perspective of residents' "pocket", in the first half of the year, the national per capita disposable income of residents was 17,642 yuan, a real year-on-year increase of 12.0% after deducting price factors, and an average growth of 5.2% in two years, basically in line with economic growth.
"Considering that we have been hit by the epidemic since last year, it can be said that it is quite difficult to achieve a per capita income growth rate of 5.2%." Liu Aihua, a spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics, said that the realization of this growth is due to economic recovery, which drives employment. Increase, which in turn leads to an increase in income.
At the same time, there are also policy-supported factors, and local governments have increased their livelihood guarantees. At the same time, there are also the efforts of market players themselves.
In the first half of this year, the national per capita wage income, net operating income, net property income, and net transfer income increased in nominal terms by 12.1%, 17.5%, 15.0%, and 9.0%, respectively, year-on-year.
The per capita income ratio of urban and rural residents was 2.61, a decrease of 0.07 compared to the same period last year.
More momentum for development
Observing that China's economic power is insufficient, the "troika" is an important indicator.
In the first half of the year, while production continued to rebound, my country's investment, consumption, and exports maintained a stable recovery trend, and worked together to promote economic recovery.
According to Liu Qiao, dean of Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, China's economy has recovered well after the epidemic, showing strong resilience and vigorous vitality.
Investment, export, and consumption are the three important forces driving China's economy.
During the entire post-epidemic economic recovery period, the time points at which these three forces played their roles were different, but in the end, they became coherent as a whole to support the continuous strengthening of the foundation of China's economic recovery.
"The fastest'running' is undoubtedly exports. Relative to exports, consumption and investment, especially fixed asset investment, have been delayed to a certain extent, but the data has also turned positive in the first quarter of this year, and continued to recover in the first half of this year." Liu Qiao said.
Data shows that in the first half of the year, the total retail sales of consumer goods was 21,190.4 billion yuan, an increase of 23.0% year-on-year, and an average growth rate of 4.4% in two years, 0.2 percentage points faster than the first quarter.
The year-on-year growth rate of 18 commodity categories of units above designated size all exceeded 10%, of which more than 70% of the commodity categories grew by more than 20% year-on-year.
The catering industry, which was severely affected by the epidemic, had revenue of 217.1 billion yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 48.6%, and the scale was basically the same as in the first half of 2019.
Xu Xianchun, director of the China Economic and Social Data Research Center of Tsinghua University, said that the contribution rate of final consumption expenditure to economic growth in the first half of the year reached 61.7%, which drove economic growth by about 7.8%, which was in sharp contrast with the downward trend in the same period last year.
In terms of investment, in the first half of this year, fixed asset investment increased by 12.6% year-on-year, and the two-year average growth rate was 4.4%, 1.5 percentage points faster than the first quarter.
Among them, manufacturing investment in the first half of the year increased by 19.2% year-on-year, and the two-year average growth rate was 2.0%, which accelerated by 1.4 percentage points from negative to positive from January to May.
Wen Bin, chief researcher of China Minsheng Bank, believes that on the one hand, the improvement in manufacturing investment is related to the strong external demand and the continued high level of export demand; on the other hand, the state has introduced a series of structural policies to support manufacturing and small and medium-sized enterprises. The effect is gradually brought into play.
More positive factors
How will the economy run in the second half of the year?
Liu Aihua believes that factors supporting the further recovery and improvement of the economy are gradually accumulating and increasing.
First, the endogenous driving force of the economy has gradually increased; second, the confidence of market entities has continued to increase; third, the current global economy continues to recover, laying the foundation for the growth of external demand.
Tang Jianwei believes that although the economic growth rate will gradually decline in the third and fourth quarters due to the year-on-year base, it is expected to accelerate quarter by quarter from the compound average growth rate in the past two years. At the same time, the economic growth momentum will be structurally optimized.
my country's macro-control policies can ensure that the economy operates within a reasonable range.
While affirming the achievements, we must also realize that my country's economy is still in the process of recovery, and the foundation for stable recovery needs to be further consolidated.
Wang Jun, chief economist of Centaline Bank, said that China's economy still showed a trend of unbalanced recovery in the first half of the year, and the focus of macroeconomic policies in the second half of the year needed to be "three arrows" to stabilize growth, adjust structure, and promote transformation.
It is expected that the Chinese economy will gradually return to potential economic growth in the second half of the year.
“The national economy continued to recover steadily in the first half of the year, which is basically in line with expectations. In the second half of the year, there are still many unstable and uncertain factors in my country’s economic development.” Wen Bin believes that macroeconomic policies should continue to remain stable, as external shocks increase. As the pressure on Yamato’s growth has increased, the focus of its work has shifted moderately to stable growth and stable market players, and continued to increase efforts to boost domestic demand.
Liu Qiao believes that the future policy focus should focus on two aspects: First, how to truly increase the disposable income of urban and rural residents, so as to give play to the fundamental role of consumption in economic growth.
The second is how to enable a large number of small, medium and micro enterprises, especially private enterprises, to have sufficient profits under the double impact of the uncertain internal and external environment and achieve more stable and sustainable development.
——Interpretation of China's Economic Semi-annual Report (Part 1)
——Interpretation of China's Economic Semi-annual Report (Part 1)