The National Bureau of Statistics announced the operation of the national economy in April on May 17. In April, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 3,569.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.3%; Month-on-month, it increased by 0.03%. From January to April, the total retail sales of consumer goods 156026 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.1%.
From January to April, the national investment in fixed assets (excluding rural households) 143401 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%; Excluding investment in real estate development, the national investment in fixed assets increased by 8.9 percent.
Liu Aihua, spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics, chief economist and director of the Department of Comprehensive Statistics of the National Economy, said that on the whole, the national economy operated smoothly in April, although some indicators were affected by factors such as the wrong month of holidays and the high base of the same period last year, the growth rate slowed down, but the main indicators such as industry, exports, employment, and prices have generally improved, and the new momentum has maintained rapid growth, and the national economy has continued to pick up and improve, and positive factors have accumulated.
The year-on-year growth rate of social zero fell
In April, the total retail sales of consumer goods reached 3,569.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.3%; Month-on-month, it increased by 0.03%. The year-on-year growth rate slowed down by 0.8 percentage points from the previous month.
Liu Aihua said that the decline in the zero growth rate in April was mainly affected by factors such as the decrease of 2 days in the number of holiday days compared with the same month of the previous year and the high base in the same period.
Wang Qing, chief macro analyst of Oriental Jincheng, said that from a month-on-month perspective, the month-on-month growth rate of the zero quarterly adjustment in April was 0.03%, which was at a significantly low level compared with the growth rate of the same period of the previous year (the average growth rate in the past ten years was 0.62%), which also showed that the momentum of consumption growth was insufficient.
"The growth rate of social zero continues to be at a low level, behind which is affected by the downturn in the real estate market, and the current consumer confidence of residents is still weak." Wang Qing said.
The Institute of Finance and Credit believes that the year-on-year growth rate of social zero has fallen, firstly, due to the impact of the holiday staggered monthly effect, the high base effect and the weak consumption willingness of residents, the growth rate of catering income has fallen more, contributing about 1/3 of the social zero decline;
Wang Qing pointed out that the retail sales of automobiles above designated size in April fell by 5.6% year-on-year, an increase of 1.9 percentage points from the previous month. Due to the relatively high proportion of automobiles in commodity consumption, this has had a phased downward effect on the overall growth rate of retail sales of goods in April.
From January to April, retail sales of services increased by 8.4% year-on-year, 4.9 percentage points higher than the growth rate of retail sales of goods in the same period. Consumption of services is faster than consumption of goods.
From January to April, the year-on-year growth rate of social zero was 4.1%, Wang Qing pointed out that considering that the cumulative CPI in the same period was 0.1% year-on-year, therefore, the actual year-on-year growth rate of social zero from January to April was about 4.0% year-on-year, which was significantly lower than the cumulative actual year-on-year growth rate of 6.3% of industrial added value, showing that commodity consumption is a weak link that needs to be improved urgently in the current economic repair process, and the situation of "strong supply and weak demand" in the mainland economy is still prominent.
The growth rate of fixed asset investment slowed down, and the growth rate of the three major areas all declined
By sector, infrastructure investment increased by 6.0 percent year-on-year, manufacturing investment increased by 9.7 percent, and real estate development investment decreased by 9.8 percent. The sales area of newly built commercial buildings nationwide was 292.52 million square meters, a year-on-year decrease of 20.2%; The sales of newly built commercial buildings were 2,806.7 billion yuan, down by 28.3 percent.
From January to April, the growth rate of fixed asset investment was slower than that in the first quarter (4.5%), and according to Wen Bin, chief economist of Minsheng Bank, the year-on-year growth rate of fixed asset investment in April was 3.6%. The seasonally adjusted month-on-month growth rate in April was -0.03%, turning negative for the first time in nearly three months.
"From the perspective of the industry, the growth rate of infrastructure, manufacturing, and real estate development investment has slowed down both cumulatively and monthly." Wen Bin said.
Infrastructure investment in January-April was slower than in January-March (6.5%), and according to Wang Qing's estimates, the year-on-year growth rate of infrastructure investment in April was 5.1%, 1.5 percentage points slower than that in March. Wang Qing believes that on the one hand, it is related to the high base in the same period last year, and at the same time, the rain and flood disasters in the southern departments in April this year are more serious, which has a certain impact on the progress of outdoor infrastructure construction. It is worth noting that due to the impact of the idling of governance funds, the medium and long-term loans of enterprises in April increased significantly compared with the same period last year, the pace of special bond issuance has been slow since the beginning of the year, the current local government land transfer income is still declining, and 12 high-debt provincial and municipal government investment projects such as Guizhou are facing strict control, which may also have a certain impact. Among them, the latter is the biggest uncertainty factor facing the trend of infrastructure investment in the coming period.
"However, the infrastructure investment data in April continued to be at a high growth level, mainly because the current real estate investment will be in a rapid downward state, and infrastructure investment needs to maintain a high growth level to hedge." Wang Qing said.
From January to April, manufacturing investment increased by 9.7% year-on-year, 0.2 percentage points slower than that from January to March. The Finance and Credit Research Institute believes that the marginal slowdown in manufacturing investment is still resilient, mainly due to the high base after the epidemic and the low capacity utilization rate of some industries, the growth rate of high-tech manufacturing investment has fallen from a high level, and the support for the manufacturing industry has weakened; Second, driven by the rise in international commodity prices and the strong expectation of accelerated domestic infrastructure, the willingness of some upstream industries to invest in production expansion has expanded; Third, the moderate recovery of domestic consumer demand and the continuous positive growth of corporate earnings have positively driven the investment and expansion of enterprises.
In terms of real estate investment, the cumulative year-on-year decline from January to April increased by 0.3 percentage points compared with that from January to March. Wang Qing pointed out that since the beginning of the year, the property market has been cold, and at the same time, real estate construction data is also declining across the board. The most striking thing is that the area of commercial housing completions promoted by the "guaranteed delivery building" continued to be in a double-digit high growth state, but from January to April this year, it fell by 20.4% year-on-year. "The current decline in real estate investment has a greater drag on the economy, which is an important reason why the current infrastructure investment needs to remain high."
What's next?
Looking forward to the next stage, Zhou Maohua, a macro researcher at Everbright Bank, believes that with the renewal of equipment and the trade-in of goods, the active financial efforts and efforts to increase the front, and the effect of the policy of stabilizing the property market is gradually emerging, which is expected to promote the steady recovery of commodity consumption and investment, the momentum of domestic demand is expected to be further enhanced, the resilience of foreign trade performance, and the low base effect of the same period last year, the economic growth rate is expected to accelerate in the second quarter.
The Finance and Credit Research Institute believes that due to the gradual smoothing of the economic cycle to drive the recovery of residents' income, the policy of stabilizing private enterprises and promoting consumption, and the continued recovery of service consumption demand, it is expected that the annual consumption is expected to rebound moderately to about 5%.
"The year-on-year growth rate of the company is expected to rebound to around 3.5% in May." Wang Qing expects that in the future, the biggest uncertain factor affecting the growth rate of social zero will still be when the property market will stabilize and pick up, so as to eliminate the impact of asset shrinkage on residents' consumption psychology.
In terms of fixed asset investment, Wang Qing believes that in the short term, manufacturing investment is expected to continue the steady upward momentum since the fourth quarter of 2023, and the annual growth rate is estimated to reach about 8.0%. Among them, the investment in high-tech manufacturing industry will reach a double-digit high growth state, which is a concrete embodiment of policy support for the construction of a modern industrial system and a focus on promoting the development of advanced manufacturing industry. "The biggest uncertainty affecting manufacturing investment in 2024 is whether the real estate sector can achieve a soft landing as soon as possible, which in turn will boost demand and boost investment confidence."
In the field of real estate investment, Wang Qing believes that with the introduction of real estate support policies, the sales collection of real estate enterprises is expected to pick up, and the speed of real estate development loans will be further accelerated, which will help to drive the stabilization of real estate construction data.