(Economic Watch) Facing Downward Pressure, China's Economy Has a Stable Start
China News Agency, Beijing, April 18 (Reporter Wang Enbo) In the face of further downward pressure, China's economy will generally start smoothly in 2022.
China's National Bureau of Statistics announced on the 18th that China's economy continued to expand in the first quarter, with gross domestic product (GDP) increasing by 4.8% year-on-year and 1.3% month-on-month compared to the fourth quarter of 2021.
Wen Bin, chief researcher of China Minsheng Bank, analyzed that, from a trend point of view, China's GDP growth rate in the first quarter rebounded by 0.8 percentage points from the fourth quarter of last year, and was 0.1 percentage points lower than the third quarter of last year; from a quarter-on-quarter perspective, China's GDP growth rate in the first quarter increased by 1.3 percentage points. %, lower than the fourth quarter of last year, but higher than or equal to the growth rate in the first, second and third quarters of last year, and the economic development basically showed signs of bottoming out.
Opening this "first quarterly report", we can see that the main macro indicators remain within a reasonable range.
For example, in the first quarter, the national urban surveyed unemployment rate averaged 5.5%, basically the same as the same period of the previous year; consumer prices rose by 1.1% year-on-year, showing a moderate increase; foreign exchange reserves remained stable at about 3.2 trillion US dollars, and the balance of payments remained stable .
The areas of people's livelihood that have received the most attention under the epidemic also continued to improve.
In the first quarter, the per capita disposable income of national residents increased by 5.1% year-on-year in real terms. Among them, the per capita disposable income of rural residents increased by 6.3% in real terms, and the per capita disposable income of urban residents increased by 4.2% in real terms. The income growth of rural residents continued to be faster than that of urban residents.
Investment in the people's livelihood sector continued to increase.
In the first quarter, investment in education and health increased by 17.2% and 23.8% respectively.
It is worth mentioning that in the face of downward pressure, new industries and new models in the Chinese economy are still growing.
In the first quarter, the added value of high-tech manufacturing industry increased by 14.2% year-on-year, and the added value of information transmission, software and information technology services increased by 10.8%, all of which maintained rapid growth.
During the same period, the online retail sales of physical goods increased by 8.8% year-on-year, continuing to grow on the basis of a high base, accounting for 23.2% of the total retail sales of social consumer goods.
A series of data reflects the continued recovery of China's economy in the first quarter of this year, but it cannot be ignored that the world situation has been complicated and evolved since March, the impact of the domestic epidemic continues, and some unexpected factors exceed expectations.
This change is intuitively reflected in the weakening of some data in the month of March.
In the month, the total retail sales of consumer goods fell by 3.5% year-on-year; the service industry production index fell by 0.9% year-on-year.
The rebound of the epidemic has made it more difficult for some people to find employment, and the unemployment rate in the national urban survey in March rose by 0.3 percentage points to 5.8%.
Wen Bin said that due to the more complex and severe international environment and the frequent occurrence of domestic epidemics, China's main macro indicators in the first quarter showed rapid growth in the first two months and slowed or negative growth in March, reflecting that downward pressure cannot be ignored. .
Under the complex situation, can China's economy, which has achieved a stable start, continue to move forward steadily?
The analysis believes that the macroeconomic policy will provide support for this.
Bai Jingming, a researcher and former vice president of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, said that the epidemic had a major impact on China's economy in the first quarter, and the proactive fiscal policy should be put in the lead. Big plate.
For example, the data in the first quarter showed that tax rebates and tax reductions played a positive role in supporting enterprises. This year, the tax rebates and tax reductions are expected to be about 2.5 trillion yuan (RMB, the same below), of which the value-added tax credits and tax refunds are about 1.5 trillion yuan.
The policy "combination punch" to support the development of corporate relief has also played a positive role in stabilizing production.
In the first quarter, China's official questionnaire survey of nearly 110,000 industrial enterprises above designated size across the country showed that enterprises' satisfaction with various preferential policies increased by 2.7 percentage points from the previous quarter, of which enterprises were more than 85% satisfied with the tax and fee reduction policies.
In response to the downward pressure, the implementation of China's macro policies will be further strengthened.
The latest example is that the People's Bank of China decided to cut the reserve requirement ratio across the board on April 25, releasing about 530 billion yuan of long-term funds to help reduce corporate financing costs.
In addition, measures to ensure food and energy security, maintain the stability of the industrial chain and supply chain, and secure the bottom line of people's livelihood are also being rolled out one after another.
"As the effect of the policy gradually emerges, it will promote the smooth operation of the economy." Fu Linghui, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics of China and director of the National Economic Comprehensive Statistics Department, predicts that from the perspective of this year, the Chinese economy is expected to maintain a momentum of recovery and development.
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