Posted on 17 Mar 2022
China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) defined the overall domestic economic performance for January-February as being better than expected in its analysis note on March 15, the day it released the series of related data.
"Despite the complex and severe international environment and multiple challenges domestically including the pandemic outbreaks... China's national economy maintained its steady recovery, both demand and production achieved relatively fast growths, both employment and consumption had been stable, and new driving forces had been progressing too," NBS summarized.
Over January-February, China's industrial added-value in general still managed to grow 7.5% on year, or 1.4 percentage points higher than the average for 2020-2021, and among the all, high-technology and machinery manufacturing grew 14.4% and 9.6% on year respectively, according to the NBS data.
Among the industrial products, new-energy vehicle, industrial robot, and solar battery saw their output up 150.5%, 29.6%, and 26.4% on year respectively for the first two months, matching Beijing's initiative to expand the domestic manufacturing especially higher-end products, Mysteel Global noted.
As for domestic consumption, the country's consumer goods retail revenue grew by 6.7% on year to Yuan 7.44 trillion ($1.17 trillion), or up 2.8 percentage points for the average of 2020-2021, partly due to the Chinese New Year (CNY) celebration and 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and the series of serious promotions on various online shopping platforms during the CNY period, Fu Linghui, NBS' spokesperson commented at a press conference on Tuesday.
In the first two months, China's online shopping revenue, as a result, grew by 12.3% on year to Yuan 1.64 trillion, or accounting for 22% of the total, according to the NBS data. Beijing has shared its plan to extend logistics services to the rural areas in China in 2022 to facilitate online shopping in the countryside as part of the efforts to boost domestic consumption, as reported.
As for the fixed asset investment (FAI), the growth for January-February reached 12.2% on year, or 7.3 percentage points higher than the 2021 average, and the funding in high-technology manufacturing and electronics and telecommunication and medical devices manufacturing surged 50.3% and 41.2% on year respectively, NBS highlighted.
For January-February, the funding from the Chinese government grew by 33.9% on year, and projects with the investment at Yuan 100 million and above grew 15.8% on year or accounted for about 60% of the total FAI, Fu shared. Many of such giant-sized projects are infrastructure-related, Mysteel Global noted.
Over January-February, China created 1.63 million new jobs out of the target at 11 million for the whole 2022, Mysteel Global noted, and by the end of February, the unemployment rate at China's townships reached 5.5%, or up 0.2 percentage point from January but flat on year, according to the official data.
In the context of the complexities in the global environment, both Russia and Ukraine accounts for a small proportion in China's foreign trade, so the direct impact is rather limited, but geopolitical changes will impact bulk commodities prices and this may intensify the pressure of imported inflation for China, Fu commented, though China has its own bandwidth in sustaining domestic energy supplies, able to grow its raw coal output by 10.3% on year and power generation by 4% on year over January-February.
Besides, global economy is still recovering, and demand for Chinese products may increase further, he added, noting that China's new export orders sub-index returned to the expansion zone by February at 50.8.
Source:Mysteel Global
