China Youth Daily | What positive signals did the Politburo meeting send

Less than 10 days after the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, many places adjusted or completely canceled the property market purchase restriction policy. The meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held on April 30 pointed out that it is necessary to combine the new changes in the supply and demand relationship of the real estate market and the new expectations of the people for high-quality housing, and coordinate the study of policies and measures to digest the stock of real estate and optimize the incremental housing.

What has attracted much attention is that the meeting decided to convene the Third Plenary Session of the 20 th CPC Central Committee in July this year. The meeting decided to convene the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee in July this year to make comprehensive arrangements and arrangements for comprehensively deepening reform and expanding opening up at a high level in the new era. This will certainly be a new historical starting point for the mainland's reform and opening up. In the view of Zhang Liqun, a researcher at the Macroeconomic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, the meeting required the whole party to consciously put reform in a more prominent position and further deepen reform in an all-round way around the promotion of Chinese-style modernization. This will also provide a more efficient and solid institutional guarantee for comprehensively promoting high-quality development and accelerating the construction of a new development pattern. ”

Steady start Positive factors for economic operation have increased

"The Politburo meeting held in April has been very important in the past years, and the meeting will decide whether to continue or adjust the previous policy tone and specific measures according to the economic performance since the beginning of the year." Luo Zhiheng, chief economist and dean of the Research Institute of Guangdong Kai Securities, said that the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held at the end of April this year affirmed the economic performance since the beginning of the year, and believed that positive factors have increased and achieved a good start. And still maintained a positive policy tone, and did not make a policy turn due to the "good start" of economic data in the first quarter.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, preliminary calculations show that the GDP in the first quarter of 2024 will be 296299 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.3% at constant prices and a quarter-on-quarter increase of 1.6% over the fourth quarter of the previous year. By industry, the added value of the primary industry was 1,153.8 billion yuan, up by 3.3 percent year-on-year; the added value of the secondary industry was 109846 billion yuan, up by 6.0 percent; The added value of the tertiary industry was 174915 billion yuan, up by 5.0 percent.

Mao Kejun, director of the Third Research Department of Xi Jinping's Economic Thought Research Center, noted that in the first quarter of this year, the mainland's industry rebounded, and the added value of the country's industrial enterprises above designated size increased by 6.1% year-on-year. In March, the manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) was 50.8%, an increase of 1.7 percentage points from the previous month, and 50.4% in April. A few days ago in Beijing, the second anniversary of the founding of the journal "Xi Jinping's Economic Thought Research" and the interpretation of the economic situation, Mao Kejun especially mentioned that the mainland has the world's most complete and largest industrial system, with strong production capacity and perfect supporting capacity, and industrial development has the characteristics of solid foundation, complete system, strong supporting capacity and huge potential, providing a strong endogenous driving force for the mainland's economic growth, which is the confidence and confidence of the mainland's long-term economic growth.

Gu Yan, director of the first research department of the Xi Jinping Economic Thought Research Center, used "abundance", "clothing", "foot" and "reality" to summarize the new trends and new highlights of consumption in the first quarter. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's GDP increased by 5.3% year-on-year in the first quarter, of which final consumption expenditure contributed 73.7%, driving GDP growth by 3.9 percentage points. "'Abundance' means that the consumption scene is more abundant. This reflects the accelerated recovery of the supply side of consumption. Gu Yan analyzed that from the "Erbin Ice and Snow Tour" at the end of the year and the beginning of the year to the "Tianshui Malatang" since March, the "Zibo Barbecue" style is iterating on the scene of "eating" and "traveling". "In this kind of scenario, the value of consumer goods is not high, but it produces a 'multiplier effect' of several times to more than ten times, especially for service consumption. The abundance of consumption scenarios provides a platform for the release of service consumption, and also provides new momentum for the sustainable development of consumption in the structural transformation. Gu Yan said.

In terms of actively expanding domestic demand, the meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee put forward four measures, namely, "implementing the action plan for large-scale equipment renewal and trade-in of consumer goods", "creating more consumption scenarios", "further promoting people-oriented new urbanization", and "implementing a new mechanism for public-private partnership".

In Gu Yan's view, consumption is expected to continue to recover and improve throughout the year. On the one hand, the policy is powerful, with the implementation of large-scale equipment renewal and consumer goods trade-in action plan, through the car for "energy", home appliances for "intelligence", home decoration and kitchen "renewal", etc., the total scale of about 1 trillion yuan of demand will be accelerated; On the other hand, there is the accumulation of fundamentals. "The fundamentals of the mainland's economic recovery and continuous improvement have not changed, and the development resilience shown in the first quarter will continue to a longer period, which will build a solid foundation and provide inexhaustible impetus for consumption development."

Riding on the Momentum The pace of finance is expected to accelerate

"The economic scale in the first quarter accounted for about 22% of the total economic output of the year, and a good start is of great significance to the completion of the annual economic and social development goals and tasks." Li Hui, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission's Comprehensive Department of National Economy, said in an interview with the media that in the future, the mainland has the opportunity to upgrade its industries brought about by the development of new quality productive forces, a more solid foundation for high-quality development, a driving force and vitality stimulated by further deepening reform and opening up, and policies and work preparations to deal with domestic and foreign risks and challenges. ”

The expressions put forward by the Politburo meeting of the Central Committee, such as "insisting on taking advantage of the momentum and avoiding tightening before loosening" and "relying on the front to effectively implement the macro policies that have been determined", are also the key words of economic work in 2024.

In the view of Guo Lei, chief economist of GF Securities, one of the spaces for "riding on the momentum" is to further promote the normalization of the nominal growth rate after the real growth rate improves in the first quarter. "From the perspective of economic logic, the direction of raising prices and nominal growth is to raise demand and reduce supply."

He combined with the policy since the second quarter, he said that speeding up the fiscal rhythm and loosening the real estate market is conducive to boosting demand, and the control of crude steel output and the capacity guidance of the lithium battery industry are conducive to optimizing supply, "These measures should be gradually reflected in the follow-up volume and price trends." ”

Regarding the meeting emphasized that "relying on the front to effectively implement the macro policies that have been determined", "issuing and making good use of ultra-long-term special treasury bonds as soon as possible, and speeding up the issuance and use of special bonds", Guo Lei believes that the acceleration of the fiscal pace will be the highlight of the second and third quarters. "At present, the issuance of ultra-long-term special treasury bonds and local special bonds is slow, and it is expected to accelerate after this meeting, and the issuance peak may be ushered in from May to June."

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in April, the business activity index of the construction industry increased by 0.1 percentage points from the previous month, continuing to be in a relatively high prosperity range. Among them, the business activity index of the civil engineering construction industry was 63.7%, up 3.9 percentage points from the previous month, rising to a high boom range, and the construction progress of enterprises has accelerated. "Subsequently, with the support of financial efforts, infrastructure investment is expected to accelerate the landing." Guo Lei said.

It is worth noting that while the issuance of special bonds is accelerating, debt risk prevention and resolution is still the focus. The meeting made it clear that it is necessary to thoroughly implement the local government debt risk resolution plan to ensure that provinces, cities and counties with high debt risks can not only truly reduce debts but also develop steadily.

"The purpose of debt reduction is to resolve debt risks, not the scale of debt, and there cannot be a situation where economic growth is limited in order to reduce the scale of debt, and debt risks are passively increased." In Luo Zhiheng's view, debt should be solved in the process of development, by optimizing the debt expenditure structure, improving expenditure efficiency, expanding the scale of the economy to reduce debt risks, and establish a debt management mechanism that matches high-quality development. He suggested that on the one hand, the provincial government should coordinate the issue of interest payment, support the district and county governments to continue to revitalize assets and resources, and on the other hand, strictly control the adjustment of new government projects from the province to the city, so as to stimulate the relevant city and county governments to release their investment potential.

Zhang Bin, a senior researcher at the China Finance 40 Forum (CF40) and deputy director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also believes that the basis for evaluating government debt risk is the government's borrowing space, not the scale of debt. "The government's borrowing space depends on changes in market supply and demand for private sector savings and investment." Zhang Bin analyzed that when the private sector's savings are much greater than investment, the government's increased borrowing and spending will not bring inflationary pressure or threaten monetary credit. "The focus of efforts to resolve local government debt should be to maintain stability, reduce financing costs, stabilize cash flow, and make debt sustainable." Zhang Bin said.