Report summary:
From January to February 2022, the cumulative value of exports was 544.7 billion US dollars, an increase of 16.3% year-on-year; This growth rate is lower than 29.9% in 2021 and 23.0% in Q4 in 2021, but slightly higher than 15.5% expected by the market (wind caliber).
From January to February 2022, exports increased by 16.3% year-on-year. Exports in the four quarters of 2021 were 48.8%, 30.6%, 24.2% and 23.0% respectively year-on-year; The year-on-year growth rate of exports in 2021 was 29.9%.
How to evaluate the quality of this export data? It's very simple. Make a comparison with the "due" data under seasonal characteristics. We can take the link ratio of the combined exports from January to February compared with the combined exports from November to December of the previous year as a coordinate. The link average since 1995 is - 23.31%, the link average since 2000 is - 20.42%, the link average since 2010 is - 21.42%, the average since 2010 (excluding 2020) is - 20.05%, and this year is - 18.14%. Obviously, this year's exports are more seasonal.
Considering that the export base in the third quarter and fourth quarter of 2021 is stable, and the year-on-year level of each month is almost the same, we can make a judgment by comparing the export value from January to February with the level at the end of 2021.
Obviously, the export performance from January to February this year is stronger than the historical seasonality.
In the recent report, we pointed out that "short-term exports may still perform strongly, which needs to be confirmed by the data". The main reason is that "the BCI enterprise recruitment prospective index rose 6.3 points to 70.9 month on month in February, which is a sign of good export performance from previous experience". PMI new orders and South Korea's export data also point to the same direction; At the same time, we also pointed out that "the growth rate of foreign trade cargo throughput of China Hong Kong Association with slightly inconsistent signals was in the low range in January and February" -- in hindsight, the port cargo throughput may be more biased, and the essence of export is volume and price; Moreover, there may be a deviation between it and export in the description of statistical time; Orders, recruitment and export performance of comparable economies are more important.
In "what drives the improvement of PMI and BCI month on month", we pointed out that short-term exports may still perform strongly, which needs to be confirmed by the data. The BCI enterprise recruitment prospective index rose sharply by 6.3 points to 70.9 month on month. From past experience, this is a sign of good export performance. PMI's new export orders also rose 0.6 points month on month. South Korea's exports in February were 20.6% year-on-year, higher than the previous value, and the mapped external demand was also stable as a whole. The growth rate of foreign trade cargo throughput of China Hong Kong Association with slightly inconsistent signals was in the low range in January and February.
In "which indicators can synchronously observe exports", we combed the main characteristics of BCI enterprise recruitment prospective index, foreign trade cargo throughput of major coastal hub ports, export growth of South Korea, and year-on-year SCFI of Shanghai container freight index, as well as their empirical relevance to exports.
From the perspective of structural characteristics, the mainland's exports to Hong Kong, China grew rapidly last year, and the year-on-year growth rate was basically the same as that of the whole; However, from January to February this year, it was only 3.7% year-on-year, with a month on month change of - 35.7% compared with November to December last year. There may be the impact of regional epidemic.
From January to February, exports to the United States increased by 13.8% year-on-year (27.5% of last year); Exports to the EU increased by 24.2% year-on-year (32.6% last year); Exports to Japan increased by 7.5% year-on-year (16.3% last year); Exports to ASEAN increased by 13.3% year-on-year (26.1% last year).
From January to February, the mainland's exports to Hong Kong, China increased by 3.7% year-on-year (28.6% in the whole year of last year), with a significant decline.
From the perspective of export products, the overall performance of electronic products is weak. The year-on-year performance of automatic data processing equipment and parts is 9.7% (21.0% last year), and the year-on-year export volume of mobile phones is only 1.2% (16.6% last year). Consumer durables in the post real estate cycle were significantly weaker, with household appliances at - 3.7% (49.3% last year), furniture at 1.8% (26.4% last year) and lamps at - 6.2% (31.2% last year); The performance of labor-intensive products was differentiated. Clothing was 5.9% year-on-year (23.9% last year), but shoes and boots were 21.7% year-on-year (35.3% last year), toys were 21.4% year-on-year (37.7% last year), and travel bags were 24.1% year-on-year (35.0% last year). The growth rate of epidemic prevention products rebounded significantly, with textile yarn, fabrics and products up 11.8% year-on-year, significantly higher than - 5.6% in the whole year of last year. These features point to some clues of the macro plane.
From the above data characteristics, we can see several clues:
First, the impact of overseas epidemics, so we can see a rapid rebound in the growth rate of some epidemic prevention supplies. The number of newly diagnosed cases in the world increased from about 520000 and 820000 per day in November and December 2021 to about 2.9 million and 2.08 million from January to February 2022.
Second, a round of upward period of real estate durable consumer goods has passed, and there has been no further breakthrough in the high base this year.
Third, labor-intensive products may perform better than the whole due to the repair of demand and the return of orders in Southeast Asia. In the recent report "what is the distribution of the current industry prosperity", we pointed out that there may be seasonal factors behind the month on month recovery of the prosperity indicators of the textile and clothing industry. The prosperity of the same period in 2014 and 2019, which are close to the Spring Festival, also increased month on month, but it may also include the impact of the return of low-end manufacturing orders, and its sustainability needs to be further verified.
It is worth mentioning that the automobile export continues to show a state of ultra-high growth. The export amount of automobile and chassis in 2021 was 119.2% year-on-year, while it was still as high as 103.6% from January to February 2022, accounting for 1.6% of the total export (stable at 0.6% in the past 10 years and 1.0% in 2021). This is also one of the structural highlights of China's exports in the past two years.
In the previous report "behind the continuous rise of China's export share", we once pointed out that China's annual export share continues to rise. In the first three quarters of 2021, China's international export market share was 14.9%, an increase of 0.6 percentage points year-on-year. Automobile is a typical industry with expanded export scale. The export growth rate reached 119% in 2021, and its proportion in the overall export also rose to 1.0% from about 0.6% stable in the past 10 years. The export growth rate of electronic components in the first 11 months of 2021 was 32.9%, and its proportion in the overall export rose from 3.9% in 2018 to about 8.0% in 2021. IC is another field with relatively fast growth rate. In 2021, the export growth rate was 31.9%, and the proportion in the overall export also increased to 4.6% from 3.4% in 2018.
Behind these industry trends is China's ongoing industrial upgrading.
From January to February, the import was 15.5% year-on-year, roughly in the same growth order as the export. Simply looking at this nominal figure may overestimate imports. Due to the relatively high proportion of bulk commodities in the import structure, the overall price impact is large in the upward cycle of bulk commodities. Taking crude oil as an example, the import volume was - 5.0% year-on-year, but the import amount was as high as 49.2% year-on-year. The import volume of copper was 9.7% year-on-year, and the same ratio of import amount reached 35.5%. On the whole, the import volume of major bulk commodities is still not high. For example, the import volume of steel is - 8.0% year-on-year, reflecting the relatively weak situation of domestic demand.
From the perspective of China's import structure, Shenzhen Agricultural Products Group Co.Ltd(000061) and mineral products account for a large proportion. According to WTO caliber data, in 2020, China's Shenzhen Agricultural Products Group Co.Ltd(000061) imports accounted for 10.4% of imports; Fuel and mineral products accounted for 25.6% of imports, accounting for 36% of imports. Therefore, the import data will be particularly affected by the price index.
High exports will support the economy. The higher exports, the less pressure on policy steady growth. However, at present, the export speed is still significantly lower than that in 2021, and the driving effect on GDP will still decline, which is just a matter of how much; Second, from the data of the United States, its manufacturing inventory continued to rise year-on-year at the beginning of 2021, which was empirically synchronized with its imports and China's exports. However, at present, the overseas inventory position has been on the high side as a whole, which is difficult to support the upward trend of the whole year.
For 2022, it is still a deterministic event to promote the repair of the contribution of fixed asset investment from ultra-low level.
In several understandings of the government work report, we have a rough estimate: in the GDP growth rate of 8.1% in the low base year of 2021, the pull of final consumption expenditure is 5.3 points; In the GDP growth rate of 6.0% in 2019, the pull of final consumption expenditure is 3.5 points. In the GDP growth rate of 4.9% and 4.0% in Q3 and Q4 in 2021, the pull of final consumption expenditure is 3.5% 8. 3.4 points; The pull of capital formation in 2021 is 1.1 points, but the pull of Q3 and Q4 is only 0.38 points and -0.46 points. The net export of goods and services was driven by a rare 1.7 points in 2021. In the year of single digit growth of exports, its fluctuation is generally between - 0.8 points and 0.8 points. Then, if the net export pull returns to the neutral assumption of about 0.3 points and the consumption pull in 2022 is 3.3-3.9 points, the pull of capital formation needs to return to 1.3-1.9 points from 1.1 points in 2021 and -0.46 points in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Core hypothetical risk: macroeconomic changes exceed expectations and external environment changes exceed expectations.
