Strong investment in the beginning of the year has shown many bright spots, such as accelerated growth or narrow decline in investment in the three major areas, rapid growth in investment in new growth drivers, and continued increase in investment in areas where people's livelihood is making up for weaknesses. From January to February, fixed asset investment rose 4.2 percent year-on-year, 1.2 percentage points faster than the whole of last year. Zhongtai Securities Research Institute policy group, chief analyst Yang Chang analysis, investment force at the beginning of the year, pulling role continues to appear. Non-private fixed asset investment plays an obvious role in pulling, real estate investment has narrowed its year-on-year decline, and manufacturing investment and infrastructure investment have played a significant role in pulling. The data showed a brighter reading on manufacturing investment. In the first two months, manufacturing investment grew by 9.4 percent year-on-year, 2.9 percentage points higher than that of the whole of last year."At this stage, the expansion of investment in manufacturing will not only help promote the construction of a modern industrial system, but also help accelerate the development of new quality productivity." Liu Aihua said. In terms of other investment areas, in the first two months, the growth rate of private investment turned from a decline in 2023 to a year-on-year growth of 0.4%; Infrastructure investment grew by 6.3%, up 0.4 percentage points; Investment in real estate development fell 9 per cent year on year, narrowing by 0.6 percentage points. In Liu Aihua's view, in the next stage, the trillion-yuan national debt issued in the fourth quarter of 2023 will gradually form a physical workload, strengthen the financing support for private investment projects and the implementation of factor guarantee policies, and increase investment in key areas, which will all play a supporting role in the steady growth of investment.
With the continuous effect of various policies, the main indicators of production demand increased steadily. Industrial production growth accelerated, and service consumption and online retail sales both grew at double-digit rates. Industrial production data show a variety of signs of growth. From the perspective of growth, more than 90% of industries and more than 60% of products have achieved year-on-year growth. In terms of growth rate, the national industrial added value above designated size increased by 7% year-on-year, 0.2 percentage points higher than last December. From the perspective of new growth drivers, the added value of high-tech manufacturing industries above designated size increased by 7.5% year-on-year, 1.1 percentage points higher than that in December 2023. In the first two months of this year, which coincided with the Spring Festival holiday, the consumption data of service consumption was very bright, and the retail sales of service increased by 12.3% year-on-year. Consumption of upgraded goods and bulk commodities continues to expand. Retail sales of automobiles, household appliances and audio and video equipment increased by 8.7% and 5.7% respectively.In addition, online shopping grew rapidly, in the first two months, the online retail sales of physical goods increased by 14.4% year-on-year, 6 percentage points faster than the whole of last year. "The penetration of new online consumption models has accelerated, and the rapid development of new retail such as instant retail and livestream shopping, which can better meet the needs of residents for fast-paced and high-quality life, has driven the rapid growth of online shopping." Liu Aihua said. Zhou Maohua, a macro researcher with the financial markets department of Everbright Bank, said that from the trend point of view, the replacement of old consumer goods with new ones and the return of residents' savings to normal will help promote consumption repair. The continuous maturity of new technologies such as cloud computing and big data will help consumer application scenarios continue to expand.
Strong momentum policy effectiveness is expected to further play the analysis of experts surveyed, the current world economic growth prospects still face great uncertainty, insufficient domestic effective demand and other problems still exist, promote the economic recovery to continue to improve the foundation needs to be further consolidated. Looking forward to the annual economic situation, Liu Aihua said that achieving the expected economic growth target of about 5% is conditional and supported, and the effectiveness of the policy is expected to be further played. "Recently, the policy layer has put forward incremental measures such as promoting large-scale equipment renewal and replacing old consumer goods with new ones, issuing and using ultra-long-term special Treasury bonds, and the continued effect of the policy of lowering the reserve ratio and interest rate and reducing taxes and fees implemented in the early stage will help promote the sustained recovery of the economy." Liu Aihua said. Pang Ming, chief economist of Jones Lang Lasalle China, told reporters that the next stage of policy will continue to be based on positive fiscal policy to strengthen, improve quality and increase efficiency, supplemented by prudent monetary policy, flexible, moderate, accurate and effective optimization and adjustment of credit investment and credit structure, and reasonable allocation of credit resources.
