The National Bureau of Statistics recently released macroeconomic operation data for August. Price data showed that the national consumer price index (CPI) rose by 8.8% year-on-year in August, and the increase turned from negative to positive; It rose 0.1% month-on-month, a moderate recovery from the previous month. The national industrial producer price index (PPI) fell 0.3% year-on-year, a sharp decrease of 3.0 percentage points from the previous month; it rose 1.4% month-on-month, the first positive month-on-month growth this year. The CPI and PPI indexes gradually rebounded, reflecting the recovery of household consumption and enterprise production, and the steady release of economic growth momentum. In the future, with the further recovery of the overall price level, the market is expected to continue to improve, the confidence of all parties will be further enhanced, and the price foundation for the economy to continue to stabilize and improve will be more solid.
CPI rose both year-on-year and month-on-month, indicating a steady recovery in consumer demand and continued to strengthen economic growth momentum. The stabilization of prices and the recovery of consumption are not only a manifestation of the continuous recovery of consumer confidence, but also the result of the accelerated implementation of various pro-consumption policies.
While consumer prices have generally recovered, the price structure is also significantly optimized. From a year-on-year perspective, the core CPI after excluding food and energy prices rose by 0.8% year-on-year, higher than the overall increase in CPI of 0.1%, indicating that the low operation of CPI is mainly affected by short-term price fluctuations such as food and energy. Core CPI rose unchanged from the previous month, the second highest of the year. The price of service prices rose by 1.3%, which was significantly higher than the increase in commodity prices, indicating that the growth of service consumption was better, especially the popularity of summer cultural tourism consumption, which drove the prices of air tickets, travel and hotel accommodation to rise by 8.17%, 6.14% and 8.13% respectively in August. As a typical representative of service consumption and an important direction of consumption upgrading, the sharp rise in cultural tourism consumption shows that residents' consumer confidence is continuously increasing. From a month-on-month perspective, whether it is urban CPI or rural CPI, food prices or non-food prices, consumer goods prices or service prices, all showed an increase, reflecting that a series of consumption promotion policies recently introduced by the central and local governments around urban and rural consumption, bulk consumption, service consumption and new consumption are accelerating the landing, and the "main engine" of consumption is more powerful.
The year-on-year decline in PPI narrowed, and the month-on-month increase turned positive for the first time this year, reflecting the improvement in demand for industrial products, which will drive the profits of industrial enterprises into the growth channel, which is conducive to the continuous recovery of market confidence. In particular, the price of living materials continued the trend of rising month-on-month, which means that people's daily life demand has gradually entered a sustained growth track, which is an important signal for economic recovery.
While the decline narrowed, there were also positive structural changes in PPI, highlighted by the fact that downstream prices were better than upstream prices and factory prices were better than purchase prices. From the year-on-year change, the decline in the ex-factory price of industrial producers is significantly lower than the purchase price of industrial producers; Among the ex-factory prices of industrial producers, the price of living materials fell significantly lower than that of means of production; Among the prices of means of production, the decline in the three major categories of mining, raw materials and processing narrowed sequentially. This shows that with the intensive introduction of stable growth policies by the central government, the effect of counter-cyclical regulation and control continues to appear, and the pulling effect of demand on the economy is increasing. For industrial enterprises, the structural optimization of prices means that revenue growth is faster than cost growth, which will drive the profits of enterprises in the industrial industry chain, especially downstream equipment manufacturing enterprises.
Price is the result of the joint action of market supply and demand, and is an important indicator reflecting the macroeconomic situation and operational characteristics. The recent rebound in the overall price level has sent a clear positive signal at the macroeconomic level, reflecting that a series of favorable policies intensively introduced in the early stage are accelerating the landing, the effectiveness of macro-control policies is released in an orderly manner, and the relationship between market supply and demand is gradually improving. Looking forward to the future, China's economic operation is stable and improving, and multiple factors such as confidence recovery, demand growth, and base decline will promote the moderate rise of the overall price level in the next few months.
It should be pointed out that in the context of the intensification of global economic uncertainty and the rising risk of recession in the United States and Europe, the good situation of domestic prices rebounding and supply and demand recovery still needs our careful care. The foundation for a moderate rise in the price level needs to be further consolidated, and the sustained recovery of aggregate demand needs policy assistance. In particular, we should continue to focus on expanding domestic demand, boosting confidence, preventing risks, strengthening policy coordination and cooperation, playing a good "combined fist", and further implementing policies such as promoting the development and growth of the private economy, the stable and healthy development of the real estate market, promoting income and consumption, expanding strategic emerging industries, and enlivening the capital market. On this basis, give full play to the advantages of China's ultra-large-scale market, stimulate huge demand potential, and continuously create a good situation in which demand drives supply, supply creates demand, and prices run smoothly.
(The author is a researcher at the Institute of Market and Price, China Institute of Macroeconomic Research)
Liu Zhicheng (Source: Economic Daily)