Event: in the first quarter of 2022, GDP increased by 4.8% year-on-year, 0.8 percentage points faster than that in the fourth quarter of 2021. In March, the added value of industries above Designated Size actually increased by 5.0% year-on-year, 2.5 percentage points lower than that from January to February; In March, the total retail sales of social consumer goods was - 3.5% year-on-year, with a growth rate of 10.2 percentage points lower than that from January to February; From January to March, the national fixed asset investment increased by 9.3% year-on-year, and the growth rate decreased by 2.9 percentage points compared with that from January to February.
I. GDP growth: the base of last year pushed up the growth rate downward, but it was still lower than this year's growth target under the impact of the epidemic. Infrastructure investment has become an important support for stabilizing the macro-economic market. GDP in the first quarter increased by 4.8% year-on-year, 0.8 percentage points higher than that in the fourth quarter of last year. The main reason is that measured by the two-year average growth rate, the base of the same period of last year dropped sharply - GDP in the first quarter of 2021 increased by 18.3% year-on-year, but the two-year average growth rate was only 5.0%, the second lowest level in the four quarters of 2021, while the two-year average economic growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2020 was 6.1%. It should be pointed out that the GDP growth rate in the first quarter was lower than the growth target of "about 5.5% this year", mainly because the epidemic has significantly warmed up in Shanghai, Jilin and other places since March, and spread to the whole country. This reversed the strong trend of macro data from January to February at the beginning of the year, which means that the epidemic is still the main factor affecting the current economic fluctuations.
From the perspective of the "troika", in the first quarter, except that exports maintained a strong double-digit growth momentum, consumption and investment fluctuated significantly. Among them, after the strong trend from January to February of the beginning of the year, the year-on-year negative growth occurred in March, and the year-on-year growth rate of the service industry production index also dropped sharply, which is the most obvious manifestation of the impact of the epidemic. In addition, real estate investment turned negative again in a single month in March, indicating that the downturn of the real estate market is also an important factor hindering the current macroeconomic operation. However, under the background of accelerating infrastructure investment and maintaining a high growth rate of manufacturing investment, investment in the first quarter has become an important support point for stabilizing the macro-economic market; In particular, the growth rate of infrastructure investment continues to rise, which mainly reflects the steady growth of policies.
Looking ahead, the epidemic situation in Shanghai, Jilin and other places is expected to be effectively controlled in late April, and the momentum of economic growth in the second quarter is expected to be gradually restored from a low level. However, considering that the two-year average growth rate of GDP in the second quarter of last year rose to 5.5%, the increase of the base will have a depressing effect on the year-on-year growth rate of GDP in the second quarter of this year. We expect that the GDP in the second quarter may be about 4.6% year-on-year, and continue to fall below this year's growth target. This means that the next macro policy will be further advanced and strengthened in time. Among them, the pace of tax rebate, tax reduction and fee reduction in the fiscal policy will be accelerated, and the intensity of infrastructure expenditure will continue to increase; In terms of monetary policy, after the implementation of the "comprehensive + targeted RRR reduction" in April, there is still room to increase the implementation of the policy, and the possibility of slightly reducing the policy interest rate in the second quarter cannot be ruled out. In addition, targeted support measures for small and micro enterprises in fiscal and monetary policies will be significantly increased.
