Report summary
Since March, the economy has ushered in an obvious cold spring, with the superposition of internal and external negative factors. In terms of internal factors, the epidemic broke out in many places, and production and consumption both cooled down; From the perspective of external factors, the intensity and duration of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine exceeded market expectations, international commodity prices soared, China's imported inflation pressure increased significantly, and compressed the profit space of enterprises. From the perspective of the growth momentum of each part, the chain of service industry, consumption and residential sector is the most affected, which is the most stressful part of the current economy.
Industrial production is still resilient, and the service industry is impacted again. In the first quarter, the added value of above designated industries increased by 6.5% year-on-year, and the added value of the secondary industry increased by 5.8% year-on-year, which was significantly lower than the growth rate of above designated industries, reflecting the obvious differentiation in industrial production and the significant pressure on small enterprises. Compared with the overall resilience of industrial production, the impact of the epidemic on the service industry was more obvious in March, and the added value of the tertiary industry increased by 4% year-on-year in the first quarter. There are also obvious uneven hot and cold in the service industry, and the contact aggregation industries such as railway transportation, air transportation, accommodation and catering are obviously impacted by the epidemic.
Infrastructure construction has made significant efforts, and investment has maintained a high growth. In March, the total investment in fixed assets increased by 9.3% year-on-year, down 2.9 percentage points from January to February. Among them, the broad infrastructure investment increased by 10.5%, the narrow infrastructure investment increased by 8.5%, the manufacturing investment increased by 15.6% and the real estate development investment increased by 0.7% year-on-year. Real estate investment weakened in March, with a year-on-year growth rate of - 2.4% in a single month, down 6.1 percentage points from January to February, and the construction end and sales end continued to decline. Although the epidemic has a short-term impact on the commencement and sales of projects, the negative cycle of weak house purchase expectations of residents, pressure on the cash flow of real estate enterprises and rising credit risk has not been broken. At present, the focus of real estate policy is still on the demand side. The specific manifestation is to prevent and control local land and administrative policies through urban implementation. At present, it is still not enough to completely reverse the downturn of sales. Infrastructure investment was further strengthened. The year-on-year growth of generalized infrastructure investment reached double digits in March, which continued to increase compared with January February, and the counter cyclical adjustment policy was significantly strengthened. In the first quarter, infrastructure investment was guaranteed in terms of projects and sources of funds. The early commencement of major projects and the obvious advance of special bond issuance supported the further rise of infrastructure investment. In the second quarter, when the economy is still impacted by the epidemic, infrastructure investment will remain high. Manufacturing investment remains resilient. On the one hand, manufacturing investment is still supported by a low base. On the other hand, policy factors such as the commencement of local major projects and the acceleration of enterprise technological transformation investment under the green and low-carbon transformation also promote the resilience of manufacturing investment. In particular, the high-tech manufacturing industry maintained high growth.
The epidemic impact on consumption is better than optional. In March, the epidemic had a significant impact on consumption, and the growth rate of total social consumer retail sales decreased significantly. The direct impact of the epidemic on consumption is mainly the restriction of residents' travel, the loss of offline contact consumption scenes, the serious damage to catering income, the resilience of mandatory consumption, and the obvious decline of optional consumption. The epidemic has a longer-term impact on consumption through residents' income and consumption willingness. In the first quarter, the unemployment rate broke through the target line, and the growth rate of residents' income recovered slowly; The epidemic has also affected residents' willingness to consume, residents' willingness to save has increased, and there is still a large gap between the marginal propensity to consume and that before the epidemic.
The residential sector is under significant pressure. Under the impact of the epidemic, the residential sector has been significantly damaged, the service industry, residents' income and residents' consumption have formed a negative feedback, residents' consumption and real estate have been affected, and the pressure of steady growth has increased significantly this year. In this case, it is more difficult to achieve the growth target of 5.5%.
