In the first quarter of 2022, China's electronic manufacturing industry maintained its leading position in industry and manufacturing. The growth rate of production and investment continued to be much higher than the overall level of national industry, and exports maintained a double-digit growth rate. However, due to the contraction of demand and the impact of the epidemic, the output growth of key products such as integrated circuits showed a significant downward trend, so it is necessary to be vigilant against the risk of continuous pressure in the second quarter.
Production growth continued to lead. In the first quarter of 2022, the added value of electronic information manufacturing industry above designated size increased by 12.7% year-on-year, 6.2 percentage points higher than the overall industry, and the driving range of industrial economic growth ranked first among the 31 manufacturing industries. Among them, in March, the added value of electronic information manufacturing industry above designated size increased by 12.5% year-on-year, 7.5 percentage points higher than the overall industry. If we take the average growth rate from 2020 to 2021, the growth rate in the first quarter of 2022 accelerated by 0.3 percentage points on the basis of the high base of the previous two years, showing a strong growth trend.
Investment in fixed assets maintained rapid growth. In the first quarter of 2022, the growth rate of fixed asset investment in electronic manufacturing industry was 27.8%, 11.5 percentage points higher than that of national industrial investment. If the quarterly growth rate in 2021 is averaged for two years, the growth rate in the first quarter of this year has reached the highest quarterly cumulative growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2011.
Export growth slowed steadily. In the first quarter of 2022, affected by the high growth base in 2021, the export delivery value of electronic manufacturing industry increased by 11.4% year-on-year, 3.0 percentage points lower than the overall national industry. However, if the growth rate from 2020 to 2021 is taken as the two-year average, the export delivery value in the first quarter is 0.2 percentage points faster than that in the same period, which forms a strong support for the rapid growth of electronic manufacturing industry. Among them, the cumulative year-on-year growth rate of the export amount of integrated circuits, notebook computers and electronic components (in US dollars) reached 23.2%, 10.8% and 24.0% respectively.
It is worth noting that the output of key products such as integrated circuits continued to decline. Affected by the unexpected changes in China's external environment and the weak demand side, combined with the factors such as more chip stocks in the market, the output of integrated circuits in the current month fell month by month after reaching the peak in August 2021, and the monthly growth rate fell sharply from 43.9% in June to 1.9% in December. Since this year, the output of integrated circuits has continued its downward trend. In March, the output fell to 28.5 billion pieces, a year-on-year decrease of 5.1%. In the first quarter, the cumulative output reached 80.7 billion pieces, a year-on-year decrease of 4.2%. The quarterly cumulative output shrank for the first time since the second half of 2019. In addition, considering the continuous warming of the epidemic in Shanghai since April, the production capacity of major manufacturers such as Shanghai and Kunshan has been impacted to varying degrees, and the logistics transportation of the supply chain has been blocked, it is expected that the IC production will bear greater pressure in the second quarter.
