On April 18, 2022, the Bureau of statistics released the economic data of the first quarter, and the GDP in the first quarter increased by 4.8% year-on-year.
The GDP growth rate of 4.8% in the first quarter was stronger than the micro feeling.
GDP in the first quarter was 4.8% year-on-year, higher than the GDP growth rate in the fourth quarter of last year (4%). In the first quarter of this year, China's economy faced internal and external disturbances, the escalation of overseas conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, and the local spread of the epidemic in China. On this basis, GDP growth recorded 4.8% in the first quarter, showing amazing resilience. The overall performance exceeded market expectations and was stronger than micro feelings. After all, in March, people were generally worried about the impact of the epidemic on China's economy.
The old story behind the economy in the first quarter, "sea flame" is half and half.
Since last November, China's economy has shown typical differentiation. For the better, infrastructure and manufacturing industries, while real estate and consumption continue to be weak. In addition, the export performance is flat and the resilience is maintained. The old story behind economic growth in the first quarter of this year has not changed.
The growth rate of infrastructure construction in the first quarter was 10.5%, which exceeded the expected volume of power investment (19.3%), which was in line with the investment orientation of national key infrastructure projects at the beginning of the year. In the first quarter, the investment and production of manufacturing industry were not weak, and the underlying logic still lies in the high prospect of export
The supply constraints of gas plus the middle and lower reaches are released. After February, the real estate policy of one city and one policy was liberalized, but the real estate has not been significantly repaired. The volume of real estate is still weak, especially the third line. Consumption, which seemed to be improving at the beginning of the year, hit a low again in March. Social zero in the first quarter was 3.3% year-on-year, further weaker than 3.5% in the fourth quarter of last year.
The new changes behind the economy in the first quarter, the impact of the epidemic is gradually spreading.
The economic data in March was lower than that from January to February, and the biggest influencing variable was the epidemic situation. Compared with previous rounds of local epidemic, the impact of this round of epidemic is significantly different. The biggest difference is that the current round of epidemic outbreak is concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta, which not only affects consumption (especially offline catering and other service consumption), but also has a deep impact on the supply chain and industrial production system.
If the impact of the past several rounds of the epidemic stayed in consumption and investment, then the impact of the current round of the epidemic has spread to exports; If the impact of the past several rounds of outbreaks has remained on demand, the impact of this round of outbreaks has spread to industrial production.
What best reflects the particularity of the impact of this round of epidemic is the performance of the automobile chain in March. In March, the epidemic warmed up in important automobile producing areas such as Jilin and Shanghai, and the growth rate of automobile consumption fell from 3.9% from January to February to - 7.5% in March; The year-on-year growth rate of the automobile industry fell from 7.2% from January to February to - 1% in March.
At present, the impact of the epidemic on the economy is gradually spreading to industrial production and exports. We expect that the economy in April is weaker than that in March and significantly weaker than that in the first quarter.
How to achieve the defense war of 5.5% growth?
In the short term, the epidemic situation is the biggest variable affecting the economy. What we have seen is the effect of the fiscal policy of leniency. After all, the infrastructure construction was substantial in the first quarter. Although the real estate policy was liberalized in an orderly manner in the first quarter, we admit that the effect is limited and the real estate repair channel has not been opened.
If the epidemic situation and epidemic prevention policies exceed expectations and face the downward pressure of the economy, can there be more policies to ensure the 5.5% GDP growth target at the beginning of the year?
China has been fighting the epidemic for nearly three years. We combed the past economic policies against the epidemic and found that there are no more than two effective policies, finance and real estate. Unfortunately, apart from real estate and finance, we have not seen more effective policy hedging tools. For stable growth in the future, the effective focus is still on infrastructure, real estate and broad money to stabilize enterprise cash flow.
The biggest constraint facing the current economy is the impact of the epidemic on the supply chain, which threatens the sustainability of export momentum and the stability of industrial production. We believe that in the coming period of time, the focus of the policy will be to ensure supply and focus on repairing the stability of the supply chain.
Risk tip: the economic trend exceeds expectations; The epidemic development exceeded expectations; Geopolitics exceeded expectations
