China's economic data for the first quarter was released today, which is eye-catching.
GDP grew by 5.3% year-on-year, which was not only higher than last year's economic growth rate, but also exceeded the annual economic growth target of about 5% announced during the two sessions this year. For a time, "exceeding expectations" became the first reaction of the market and all parties, which also formed a clear contrast with the previous reports of some foreign media who were bearish on China's economy.
Look at the data in three dimensions
To understand the first quarter report of China's economy, it is inseparable from the three types of indicators of speed, structure and efficiency.
In terms of speed, for a large country like China, a GDP growth of 1 percentage point corresponds to an increase of trillions of yuan, and a year-on-year growth rate of 5.3% corresponds to 29.63 trillion yuan, which is roughly equivalent to Japan's total GDP in 2023. The acceleration of growth is a significant trend since the first quarter. The growth rate of 5.3% is not only higher than the fourth quarter of last year, but also higher than the growth rate for the whole of 2023.
At the beginning of this year, international institutions predicted that global growth would remain under pressure in 2024. The IMF forecasts global economic growth of 3.2% this year. The World Bank's forecast is for a 2.4 percent increase. The OECD's revised forecast is only 2.9%, and globally, China's growth of 5.3% in the first quarter does add a touch of warmth to the global economic outlook.
From a structural point of view, domestic demand, the main driving force of China's economic growth, contributed 85.5 percent to China's economic growth in the first quarter, of which the internal structure of industry and demand has also been positively improved, and the coordinated development of the economy has been further enhanced.
The reporter noted that since the beginning of this year, the three proportion indicators reflecting structural optimization have changed. The proportion of manufacturing in the whole economy, the proportion of service consumption in total consumption, and the proportion of private investment in total investment are all increasing. In the first quarter of this year, the added value of industrial enterprises above designated size increased by 6.1 percent, contributing 37.3 percent to GDP growth, driving nearly two points of GDP growth. Among them, the high-tech manufacturing industry increased by 7.5 percent, 2.6 percentage points faster than the fourth quarter of last year.
This also reminds the reporter of a few days ago in the China CNC machine tool exhibition found that nearly 2,000 exhibitors, one-third of the exhibitors are exhibiting for the first time, these new faces bring new products, high-end, CNC, intelligent products have become "standard", some of which have achieved micron-level precision motion control, breaking the long-term foreign technology monopoly.
△April 8, 2024, Shanghai, China CNC Machine Tool Exhibition.
"The overall scale of the mainland's manufacturing industry has ranked first in the world for 14 consecutive years, and now this advantage is still expanding. Wei Qijia, director of the Industry Research Office of the State Information Center, said.
Looking at the macro data, another force to be reckoned with is the service sector. In the first quarter, the service sector made great progress on the basis of last year's high base, contributing 55.7% to economic growth. During this year's Spring Festival, service consumption demonstrated its vigorous growth, once again allowing the world to see the growth potential of China's huge domestic market. The number of travelers and tourism consumption during the Spring Festival holiday have exceeded the level of the same period in 2019. Retail sales of services as a whole increased by 10% in the first quarter, 6 percentage points faster than retail sales of goods. According to data revealed by Sheng Laiyun, deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first quarter of this year, the industrial and service sectors contributed more than 90% to GDP growth.
Another factor contributing to the "exceeding expectations" economic growth in the first quarter was imports and exports. Imports and exports rose 5%, the highest in six quarters. The mainland's total imports and exports to the Belt and Road countries grew even faster, reaching 5.5 percent. The bulk of exports are industrial products, and the export delivery value of industrial products was negative 2.2% in the fourth quarter of last year, but turned positive 0.8% in the first quarter of this year, up 3 percentage points.
What is even more gratifying is that the efficiency of China's economy is improving. From January to February, the total profit of industrial enterprises above designated size reached 914.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.2 percent. The efficiency has improved, driving the confidence of market operators to increase. The national purchasing managers' index (PMI) returned to the boom range in March after several months of sluggishness.
Look at policy from three perspectives
Behind the economic growth exceeding expectations, it actually reflects the speed, strength and precision of macroeconomic policies.
Up to now, all the 1 trillion yuan of newly issued treasury bonds issued at the end of last year have been issued, which has strongly supported the steady growth of effective investment. Take the large-scale equipment renewal and consumer goods trade-in with the highest degree of attention at the moment, for example, on February 23, the Central Financial and Economic Commission meeting discussed and studied, less than a week, on March 1, the "Action Plan for Promoting Large-scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-in" was reviewed and approved by the executive meeting of the State Council, and was officially issued on March 13. At the end of March and the beginning of April, the implementation rules of various ministries and commissions were successively introduced, and the trillion-level large-scale market was launched.
Not only that, the introduction of fair competition review policies, the implementation of a new mechanism of public-private partnership, the encouragement of private capital to participate in the construction of major projects, and the implementation of a series of policies to allow private enterprises to "invest with peace of mind", "some investment" and "good investment", supporting the growth rate of private investment to continue to increase in March after turning from negative to positive in February.
For the next quarter of the economic trend of how to outlook, the deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics Sheng Laiyun said frankly, there are indeed some indicators less than expected, for example, the recovery of consumption is not as good as production, the recovery of small and medium-sized enterprises is not as good as large enterprises, including the adjustment of the real estate industry and the transformation of traditional industries are still facing pain, etc., but from the perspective of the momentum and potential of the entire economic growth, China's urbanization rate has increased by nearly 1 percentage point per year in recent years, "three new" The proportion of the economy in GDP has increased by nearly 1 percentage point every year, and the added value of the core industries of the digital economy has accounted for nearly 10% of the total economy, which is comparable to the level of developed countries in the world.
"With the acceleration of the cultivation of new quality productivity, the improvement of the quality of economic development, and the continuous progress of high-quality development, this is the fundamental condition for China's economic recovery. ”
Whether China's economy will "exceed expectations" in the future depends on what is expected of China's economy.
On March 27 this year, President Xi Jinping said at a group meeting with representatives of the U.S. business community and strategic academic circles at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing that China's development has gone through various difficulties and challenges to get to where it is today, and it has not collapsed in the past because of the "China collapse theory", and it will not peak now because of the "China summit theory". We will continue to promote high-quality development and Chinese-style modernization, so that the Chinese people can continue to live a better life and make greater contributions to the sustainable development of the world. China's development prospects are bright, and we have the confidence and confidence to do so.
Source: CCTV news client