Macro environment review
1.1 the epidemic continues to spread in Europe and the United States
As of December 31, 288 million cases of covid-19 had been confirmed worldwide, and the overall infection rate reached 3.69%; The total number of deaths was 5.444 million, and the mortality decreased slightly to 1.89%. Since the end of 2019, there have been five rounds of covid-19 epidemic in the world. The first round is from the end of 2019 to September 2020, and covid-19 epidemic has gradually spread from East Asia to the world; In the second round, from October 2020 to mid February 2021, the epidemic situation in Europe and the United States has seriously deteriorated due to unfavorable social customs and prevention and control; In the third round, from late February to mid June 2021, the virus mutation and traditional festivals led to the outbreak of the epidemic in India, and the epidemic in Europe and America was controlled with the help of vaccination; In the fourth round, from late June to early October, the delta strain with strong infectivity and immune escape characteristics first found in India spread to the United States, Europe and Asia; The fifth round began in mid October, mainly in Europe and the United States to relax preventive measures after vaccination, while the newly discovered Omicron strain in South Africa has stronger infectivity and immune escape characteristics. According to the experience in 2020, due to the Festival gathering effect at the end of the year, the epidemic in Europe and the United States will usher in the most difficult moment from Christmas in 2021 to early January 2022. The strong infectivity of Omicron variant and the Festival gathering effect at the end of the year will further worsen the epidemic situation in Europe, America and the world in the next half month; Due to the pressure on the medical system caused by the explosive growth of confirmed cases, European and American countries not only did not tighten epidemic prevention measures on a large scale, but reduced the isolation measures of confirmed cases, which made the mitigation speed more slow after the current epidemic reached its peak. As of December 31, countries and regions with more than 10000 new confirmed cases per day include the United States (North America, 374269), the United Kingdom (Western Europe, 151594), France (Western Europe, 141291), Spain (southern Europe, 82391), Italy (southern Europe, 79720), Canada (North America, 32352), Turkey (Middle East, 30862), Argentina (South America, 29882) Germany (Central Europe, 26034), Russia (Eastern Europe, 22376), Portugal (southern Europe, 17658), Netherlands (Western Europe, 14086), Ireland (Western Europe, 13857), Switzerland (Central Europe, 12254) and Poland (Eastern Europe, 10774).
As of December 31, 9.15 billion doses of covid-19 vaccine had been vaccinated worldwide, the average number of vaccinations per day (7-day moving average) was 32.09 million, and the number of people who had received at least one dose of vaccine reached 4.58 billion; The economies with the highest vaccination volume include China (2.82 billion doses), India (1.44 billion doses), the United States (510 million doses), Brazil (330 million doses) and Indonesia (270 million doses); The global vaccination rate reached 58.2%, among which Portugal (90%), China (87%), Canada (83%), Japan (80%) and the United Kingdom (76%) were in the forefront. At present, the overall vaccination rate of developed economies in Europe, America, Japan and South Korea has reached 77%, which has reached the level of mass immunization; Due to vaccine availability and financial factors, it is expected that developing countries as a whole will not reach the level of mass immunization until the first half of 2022. However, due to the continuous variation of covid-19 virus, whether it is still appropriate to measure the population immunization standard with 70% vaccination rate remains to be discussed.
1.2 marginal improvement of China’s economic continuity
In December, China’s official manufacturing PMI and non manufacturing PMI were 50.3% and 52.7% respectively, an increase of 0.2 and 0.4 percentage points over the previous month; The comprehensive PMI output index was flat at 52.2% last month, and the three indexes were in the expansion range. China’s economy continued the marginal improvement trend with the support of steady growth measures.
With the intensification of a series of stable economic development policies such as ensuring supply and stabilizing prices and helping enterprises to rescue, the prices of some bulk commodities fell significantly, the cost pressure of enterprises was relieved, and the prosperity level of the manufacturing industry rebounded for two consecutive months. The main features of this month are as follows: first, production continued to expand, with a production index of 51.4%, which was 0.6 percentage points lower than that of the previous month, but higher than the critical point, reflecting the continued growth of manufacturing production; Second, the demand has improved. The new order index was 49.7%, 0.3 percentage points higher than that of the previous month, rising for two consecutive months; Third, the price index continued to fall. The purchase price index and ex factory price index of main raw materials were 48.1% and 45.5% respectively, 4.8 and 3.4 percentage points lower than that of the previous month. They fell for two consecutive months, both falling to the low point since May 2020; Fourth, the high-tech manufacturing industry maintained rapid growth. The PMI of high-tech manufacturing industry, equipment manufacturing industry and consumer goods industry were 54.0%, 51.6% and 51.1% respectively, which continued to be higher than the critical point, and the industry maintained expansion.
Months higher than the critical point, the overall prosperity level of non manufacturing industry rebounded. Among them, the business activity index of industries greatly affected by the epidemic, such as air transportation, catering, culture, sports and entertainment, rose to the expansion range last month, and the market activity increased; Telecommunications, radio and television, satellite transmission services, monetary and financial services, capital market services and other industries remained at a high boom range of more than 60.0%, and the total business volume continued to grow rapidly. However, in terms of market demand, the new order index was 48.2%, below the critical point for seven consecutive months, indicating that the foundation for the recovery of the service industry is not firm, and enterprises are more cautious about the market trend. Affected by the cold wave cooling weather and the approaching of the “two festivals”, the business activity index of the construction industry was 56.3%, down 2.8 percentage points from the previous month, reflecting a slowdown in the production expansion of the construction industry. Recently, the policy of ensuring supply and price stability has been effective. The price index of inputs in the construction industry is 48.1%, which has been lower than the critical point for two consecutive months, and the cost pressure of enterprises has been alleviated to a certain extent.
1.3 strictly control the epidemic situation and stabilize the growth
On December 29, the executive meeting of the State Council called for improving and implementing the epidemic prevention and control of Spring Festival transportation, strengthening scientific and accurate prevention and control, and preventing one size fits all; At the same time, in view of the great downward pressure on the economy, the national standing committee will extend the time limit of preferential tax policies for individual income tax and equity incentive of listed companies, which is expected to reduce tax for enterprise residents by 110 billion yuan a year. At present, Omicron covid-19 variant is rampant in Europe and America, China is about to usher in the Spring Festival holiday, and the pressure of epidemic prevention and control has increased significantly; However, when the downward pressure on the economy is still large, significantly tightening epidemic prevention and isolation measures will have a greater impact on the service industry and even the overall economic operation. The national Standing Committee called for precise epidemic prevention and control and one size fits all prevention. On the one hand, epidemic prevention measures should be targeted and different travel regulations should be formulated for different epidemic risk areas; On the other hand, we should also strengthen response measures for the special circumstances of the Spring Festival transportation, such as guiding enterprises and universities to arrange holidays and return to work and school, limited reservation for peak staggering reception in scenic spots, etc; Finally, routine epidemic prevention measures should be carefully and strictly implemented, such as disinfection in public places, temperature detection and wearing masks. In addition, foreign countries often continue the previous measures of reducing fees and taxes to alleviate the downward pressure on the economy, which is conducive to increasing the disposable income of residents and enterprises, so as to stimulate residents’ consumption and enterprise investment at sensitive time points such as the Spring Festival and spring, so as to hedge the impact of the epidemic and smooth economic growth.
