A Perspective of China's Economic Semi-annual Report

"In the first half of this year, consumption contributed 60.1%, capital formation contributed 19.2%, and net exports of goods and services contributed 20.7%. On July 15, Mao Shengyong, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, disclosed when interpreting the economic data for the first half of the year. The national economy in the first half of the year was stable and progressive. The smooth operation of the Troika is very important. From the contribution rate, consumption is undoubtedly the main driving force for steady growth. The situation of investment, import and export is better than expected, especially the slight rebound of growth in June, which laid the foundation for economic stabilization in half a year. On the one hand, these indicators are still facing downward pressure; on the other hand, there are many favorable factors supporting their smooth operation. Mao Shengyong said that the fundamentals of China's stable economic operation have not changed, and the annual growth target of 6% to 6.5% is still in sight.

Consumption has become the main engine of current economic growth. According to the data, the total retail sales of social consumer goods in the first half of the year were nearly 20 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.4% in nominal terms over the same period of last year. In June, the total retail sales of social consumer goods in January were nearly 3.4 trillion yuan, an increase of 9.8% over the same period of last year. Among them, the contribution rate of final consumption expenditure to economic growth is 78.5%, which is higher than 47.1 percentage points of total capital formation.

Beijing Business Daily reported that the total retail sales growth of social consumer goods has rebounded for two consecutive months. Among them, after falling to the lowest level in nearly a year in April, it rose to 8.6% in May and 9.8% in January in June, reaching a 16-month high. Mao Shengyong pointed out that compared with May, some indicators did rise in June, mainly in two points. Firstly, car sales are better than expected. The main reason is the switching of the national standard from the fifth to the sixth. The sales of automobiles increased in June. The sales of automobiles in units above the quota increased by more than 17%, which stimulated the total retail sales of consumer goods to increase by about 1.6 percentage points.

"As early as the end of last year and the beginning of this year, the state introduced measures to stabilize consumption and automobile household appliances. These positive factors will continue to play a role in the second half of the year." Wang Jun, chief economist of Central Plains Bank and member of the Academic Committee of China International Economic Exchange Center, introduced the proposal. At the same time, Mao Shengyong introduced that good online retail performance in June also boosted consumer indicators, including "6.18" promotional activities, online cosmetics and household appliances sales growth rate is relatively fast. Two factors, automobile sales and online retailing, jointly promoted the growth of total retail sales of consumer goods in June. The growth of total retail sales of social consumer goods has an obvious pulling effect on the growth of the production index of the whole service industry, so this is related.

Mao Shengyong said that in the next stage, on the one hand, these indicators do face downward pressure; on the other hand, there are many favorable factors supporting their smooth operation. For example, the vitality of the market has been constantly stimulated, and a series of counter-cyclical adjustment policies, including the "Six Steady" policy, have been gradually implemented. The effect of these policies will be more obvious in the second half of the year, in order to maintain economic stability. In the foreign trade field, Mao Shengyong said that the total import and export of goods increased by 3.9% in the first half of the year, slightly faster than in the first quarter, and the situation in June was better than in May. Li Quiwen, spokesman for the General Administration of Customs, said earlier that in the first half of the year, China's foreign trade imports and exports were generally stable, steady and progressive, and the development of high-quality foreign trade was progressing in an orderly manner. According to Bai Ming, deputy director of Marketing Research Institute of Research Institute of Ministry of Commerce, from the perspective of 3.9% growth rate of foreign trade, the goal of stabilizing foreign trade has been initially achieved. "This is precious growth in a high base and complex international environment." It is worth mentioning that in the first half of the year, the contribution of private enterprises to China's foreign trade growth reached 110.2%. Among them, private enterprises accounted for 50.6% of China's total exports and for the first time accounted for half of China's exports.

Bai Ming believes that the sensitivity and flexible response mechanism of private enterprises to the market enable them to play an increasingly important role in the international market competition. At the same time, with the continuous upgrading of domestic enterprises, private enterprises themselves are also growing, such as smartphone industry, in recent years, a large number of private enterprises have grown rapidly.

However, in June and January, exports increased by 6.1% and imports by 1.11 trillion yuan, down by 0.4% compared with the same period last year. Exports grew faster than expected, while imports fell short of expectations.

Bai Ming told Beijing Business Daily that the depreciation of the RMB exchange rate this year has helped enterprises export to a certain extent and restrained the growth of imports. Many market analysts believe that there are still many uncertainties in the economic environment in the second half of the year, and the trend of Sino-US relations is one of the core factors. According to the current contacts between the economic and trade teams of the two sides, the prospects are not clear. From the import and export data in the first half of the year, China's import and export to the United States amounted to 1.75 trillion yuan, down 9% year on year, and its trade surplus was 954.81 billion yuan, expanding by 12%.

Li Quiwen said that Sino-US economic and trade friction has brought some pressure to our foreign trade, but the impact is generally controllable. However, Wang Jun cautioned that the moderate slowdown in exports showed that the external demand market was not performing well under the influence of the global economic slowdown, but that exports to the United States had fallen sharply. The impact of trade frictions was gradually reflected, and it was expected that the impact would be even greater in the second half of the year.

Huatai Macro-Li Chao Team believes that, at present, since the end of April, the domestic policy orientation has returned to the three major battles.