China News Service, July 15 (Xie Yiguan, a reporter from China-News Finance and Economics) On July 15, the National Bureau of Statistics released data that in June, the total retail sales of consumer goods was 3,874.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.1%, ending three consecutive months of negative growth.
Data map: Citizens go to shopping malls for consumption.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Li Zhihua
3.1%! exceeded market expectations
"The total retail sales of consumer goods in June increased by 3.1% year-on-year, which was significantly better than the minus 6.7% in the previous month and greatly exceeded market expectations." said Wen Bin, chief economist of Minsheng Bank.
Fu Linghui, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics and director of the National Economic Comprehensive Statistics Department, said that since this year, various factors have affected consumption growth to a certain extent.
In the first half of the year, due to the impact of the frequent spread of the epidemic, market sales declined, especially the decline in service consumption.
In the first half of the year, the total retail sales of consumer goods fell by 0.7% year-on-year.
"But since May, as the epidemic situation has been effectively controlled and the consumption promotion policy has taken effect, market sales have rebounded steadily. In May, the total retail sales decreased by 6.7% year-on-year, and the decline narrowed by 4.4 percentage points; the growth rate turned positive in June." Fu Ling Hui pointed out.
Data map: 2022 The 21st Qingdao International Automobile Industry Exhibition and New Energy Vehicles to the Countryside Tour (Qingdao Station) kicked off.
Super clothes
The consumption of automobiles, catering, and tourism has rebounded significantly
Judging from the situation in June, there has been a positive change in sales in the domestic market.
According to Fu Linghui, it is mainly reflected in the rebound in the growth rate of retail sales of most commodities; the consumption of bulk commodities has been significantly driven; the consumption of services such as catering has improved significantly;
In terms of commodity consumption, automobile consumption, as the "big head" of social zero, increased by 13.9% year-on-year in June, much higher than the -16.0% in the previous month.
Wen Bin believes that this is due to the effect of the stabilizing consumption policy.
"According to the deployment of a package of economic stabilization policies, the purchase of 2.0-liter and below passenger cars with a displacement of no more than 300,000 yuan before the end of the year can halve the vehicle purchase tax, which has significantly boosted car consumption."
"A Package of Policies and Measures to Stabilize the Economy", "Notice on Launching 2022 New Energy Vehicles to the Countryside Activities", and "Announcement on Reducing the Purchase Tax for Some Passenger Cars", the reporter noted that only on May 31, At the national level, multiple departments have successively announced several measures to benefit automobile consumption.
In addition, under the improvement of the epidemic prevention and control situation in June, residents' out-of-home consumption gradually increased, which also led to the improvement of service consumption. The decline in catering revenue in June narrowed significantly from the previous month.
At the same time, "the backlog of consumer demand during the epidemic in the past few months has been released in a concentrated manner." Wen Bin said that the most typical is that the number of domestic tourism trips during the Dragon Boat Festival has recovered to 86.8% before the epidemic, and tourism revenue has recovered to 65.6% before the epidemic. The rate reached the highest level since the National Day last year.
Data map: On June 9, citizens ate in a restaurant in Fengtai District, Beijing.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhang Yu
Consumption is expected to continue to recover
"In general, domestic consumption has withstood the impact of the epidemic since May, showing a rebounding momentum, and positive changes have increased significantly." Fu Linghui said.
Fu Linghui said that although the consumption recovery still faces constraints such as the slowdown in the growth of residents' income and the limited consumption scenarios, my country's consumption scale will expand, consumption structure will be upgraded, and the trend of consumption model innovation will not change. The employment promotion policy continues to exert force, and my country's consumption is expected to maintain a sustained recovery.
"The impact of the epidemic on consumption will gradually decrease, and the consumption situation will be improved in the second half of the year." The research team of the Bank of Communications Financial Research Center believes that the full launch of the policy of expanding domestic demand to promote consumption will help consumption growth.
In the second half of the year, the growth rate of automobile consumption is expected to pick up, especially the rapid growth of new energy vehicle consumption.
At the same time, some resistances faced by consumption also need attention.
Wen Bin said that the central bank's survey data showed that the willingness of urban residents to save has risen to 58.3% in the second quarter, the highest level since statistics.
As of the end of June, the new RMB deposits of households increased by 10.3 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.88 trillion yuan year-on-year, both hitting a record high for the same period, indicating that the propensity of residents to save on a precautionary basis is still high.
According to Yang Chang, chief analyst of Zhongtai Securities, some uncertainties will also disrupt economic fundamentals.
For example, there is still the possibility of repeated outbreaks of scattered epidemics, which may cause certain disturbances to the restoration of consumption scenarios.
(Finish)