[matters]
The National Bureau of statistics released the social zero and CPI data in April
[comments]
Affected by the Chinese epidemic, the year-on-year decline in April was within the market expectation, and the decline rate exceeded the market expectation, mainly from the decline of optional consumption. In April, the total amount of social zero was 2.9 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 11.1%, an increase of 7.6pts over the previous month. From January to April, the online retail sales of physical goods reached 3.3 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.2%, and the growth rate decreased by 3.6pts compared with the previous month. In April, the online retail volume of physical goods was 763 billion yuan, a slight decline year-on-year. The epidemic slowed down the daily operation of logistics enterprises, which was the main reason for the year-on-year decline in online retail sales of physical goods in April.
In terms of commodity types, grain, oil and food, beverages, Chinese and Western medicines, petroleum and products all achieved positive year-on-year growth in April. Grain and oil, food, beverage and medicine are mandatory consumer goods with rigid demand, showing strong resilience during the epidemic. The positive year-on-year growth of oil and products is mainly due to the rise of oil prices. Cosmetics, gold and silver jewelry, communication equipment, automobiles and other optional consumer goods fell by more than 20% year-on-year, and furniture, construction, decoration and other real estate related industries fell by more than 10% year-on-year.
In April, CPI rose by 2.1% year-on-year, with a growth rate of 0.6pts over the previous month, which exceeded market expectations, mainly due to the rise in food and energy prices. In April, the core CPI excluding food and energy increased by 0.9% year-on-year, and the growth rate decreased by 0.2pts compared with the previous month. In April, CPI rose by 0.4% month on month, which was higher than that in the same period in 2019 / 2020 / 2021. The main reason was that the impact of the epidemic in China led to the increase of stock demand and the increase of logistics costs, which led to the increase of food prices month on month.
In April, food CPI rose by 1.9% year-on-year, 3.4pts higher than that of the previous month; Food CPI increased by 0.9% month on month, which was higher than that of the same period in 2019 / 2020 / 2021. By category, eggs, fresh fruits, pork, aquatic products, grain, edible oil, etc. showed positive month on month growth. In April, non food CPI increased by 2.2% year-on-year, with the growth rate unchanged from the previous month; Non food CPI increased by 0.2% month on month, which was higher than that in the same period in 2019 / 2020, and was the same as that in the same period in 2021. By category, vehicle fuel increased by 2.7% month on month, mainly due to the rise in oil prices; Household appliances increased by 0.4% month on month, mainly due to the increase in the demand for household goods under the influence of the epidemic.
[risk tips]
The progress of epidemic recovery is lower than expected;
Macroeconomic growth was lower than expected.
