Beijing, April 4 (Reporter Li Jinlei) exceeded expectations!

The National Bureau of Statistics released the first quarterly report of China's economy on the 18th, with GDP increasing by 4.5% year-on-year, and the economy started well.

Experts said that GDP growth in the first quarter of 4.5%, exceeding external expectations, from the main indicators, it can be said that this year's Chinese economy has made a good start.

GDP growth in the first quarter exceeded expectations

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, preliminary accounting shows that the GDP in the first quarter was 284997 billion yuan, an increase of 4.5% year-on-year at constant prices, and an increase of 2.2% over the fourth quarter of the previous year.

The growth rate of 4.5% increased by 1.6 percentage points over the fourth quarter of the previous year. Xu Hongcai, deputy director of the Economic Policy Committee of the China Policy Science Research Association, told Zhongxin Finance that the 4.5% growth rate did exceed expectations, mainly due to the growth of the service sector. With the rapid and stable transformation of epidemic prevention and control, the contact-type and cluster-type service industries have rebounded significantly, and the contact consumption of residents going out, catering, entertainment, tourism and other contact consumption has grown rapidly, which has strongly supported economic growth.

Data show that in the first quarter, the added value of the service industry increased by 5.4% year-on-year, 3.1 percentage points faster than the fourth quarter of the previous year. In the first quarter, national catering revenue increased by 13.9% year-on-year.

Zhao Xijun, co-director of the China Capital Market Research Institute at Chinese Minmin University, told Zhongxin Finance that the 4.5% GDP growth rate is a relatively good performance, higher than the expectations of some market institutions. With the optimization and adjustment of epidemic prevention and control policies, various policy measures to stabilize growth, stable employment and stable prices have been put in place quickly, and with the support of advanced and sufficient policies, market entities are expected to continue to improve, confidence continues to recover, consumption, foreign trade and other data performance is quite good, jointly promoting the first quarter of the economy to achieve a growth rate that exceeded expectations.

From the website of the Office for National Statistics.

Consumption and foreign trade data are outstanding

Zhongxin Finance noted that among the "troika" that drives economic growth, consumption and foreign trade have outstanding performance.

From the perspective of consumption, the pull on economic growth has increased significantly. Fu Linghui, spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics and director of the Department of Comprehensive Statistics of the National Economy, revealed at the press conference that the contribution rate of final consumption to economic growth in the first quarter reached 66.6%, a significant rebound from last year, and was the most important factor driving economic growth among the three major demands. Total sales of consumer goods in the first quarter increased by 5.8% year-on-year, and fell by 2.7% in the fourth quarter of last year, which indicates that consumption is gradually picking up and improving.

From the perspective of foreign trade, the total import and export value of China's goods trade in the first quarter was 9.89 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.8%, and the growth rate was 2.6 percentage points faster than that in the fourth quarter of last year. After turning the growth rate from negative to positive in February, the year-on-year growth rate of China's imports and exports rebounded sharply to 2.3% in March, exceeding market expectations.

Huo Jianguo, vice president of the China World Trade Organization Research Association, said that the sudden jump in foreign trade in March was mainly due to the rapid resumption of work and production after the Spring Festival, and the full start of construction, which also shows that the external demand for Chinese products is still there, and demand orders support the development of foreign trade.

Exports increased by 8.4% in the first quarter, and Zhao Xijun pointed out that in the context of the slowdown in the world economy and the large external uncertainties, it is very good to achieve such results.

Data map: Yuyuantan Park is crowded. Photo by China News Network reporter Li Jinlei

Price growth remained low

Will there be deflation?

In the first quarter, the national consumer price (CPI) rose 1.3% year-on-year. Core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 0.8% year-on-year. In March, national consumer prices rose 3.0% year-on-year and fell 7.0% month-on-month.

The target for consumer price growth in 2023 is about 3%, so the price increase in the first quarter is within the control target.

Zhao Xijun pointed out that prices have maintained a relatively low level, and as for the outside world's concerns about whether there will be deflation, the probability is not large, because credit and social financing in the first quarter still maintained considerable growth, which is basically consistent with the economic growth data in the first quarter.

"There is no deflation in the current Chinese economy, and there will be no deflation in the next stage. Fu Linghui believes that international deflation is defined as the continuous decline in the overall price level, often accompanied by a decrease in the money supply and economic recession. However, from the perspective of China's economic operation in the first quarter, consumer prices in the first quarter rose by 1.3% year-on-year, maintaining a moderate rise. From the perspective of money supply, broad money M3 increased by 2.12% at the end of March, maintaining rapid growth. From the perspective of economic growth, China's economy grew by 7.4% in the first quarter, up from the fourth quarter of the previous year. There is no deflation as a whole.

Data map: Anhui high-speed railway golden tourist route - Chihuang high-speed railway through the clouds and fog through the picturesque scenery. Photo by Li Heping

What's next for the economy?

Economic growth is expected to be higher in the second quarter

For the future trend of China's economy, Zhao Xijun believes that the first quarter has the Spring Festival holiday, under normal circumstances, the first quarter of economic growth is not the fastest every year, the peak season of annual economic growth is in the second quarter, in the first quarter of resource allocation in place, the second quarter began to make efforts, there is a relatively rapid growth, so it is expected that the second quarter of the economy will perform better than the first quarter, if there is no special emergency throughout the year, there is no big problem in completing the growth rate of about 5%.

Xu Hongcai predicts that on the one hand, the economy will maintain the momentum of recovery, on the other hand, the base last year is low, and the economic growth rate in the second quarter is expected to be higher, possibly more than 6%, and the annual economic growth rate may be about 5.4%.

Fu Linghui judged that from the next stage, the endogenous driving force of China's economic growth is gradually increasing, macro policies are effective, and economic operation is expected to improve as a whole. Considering that the base affected by the epidemic in the second quarter of last year was relatively low, the economic growth rate in the second quarter of this year may be significantly faster than in the first quarter. In the third and fourth quarters, as the base increases, the growth rate will decline compared with the second quarter. If the impact of the base is not considered, overall economic growth is expected to show a gradual upward trend.

Recently, a number of international institutions have raised their economic growth forecasts for China. Among them, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sharply raised China's economic growth rate in 2023 to 5.2%. The Bank raised its growth forecast for China in 2023 to 4.3 percent from 5.1 percent. The latest report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development also raised China's economic growth forecast to 5.3%. (End)