At comparable prices, GDP will grow by 8.1% year-on-year in 2021, with an average growth of 5.1% in two years. In terms of quarters, it increased by 18.3% in the first quarter, 7.9% in the second quarter, 4.9% in the third quarter and 4.0% in the fourth quarter. From the seasonally adjusted month on month ratio, the first to fourth quarters of 2021 were 0.2%, 1.2%, 0.2% and 1.6% respectively. The month on month ratio in the fourth quarter has reached the pre epidemic level.
The momentum of economic recovery increased significantly in the fourth quarter, mainly due to the monthly recovery of industrial production. In the fourth quarter, the utilization rate of national industrial capacity was 77.4%, an increase of 0.3 percentage points over the third quarter. In December, the production and sales rate of industrial enterprises was 98%, up 1 percentage point from November; Industrial enterprises achieved an export delivery value of 1486.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year nominal increase of 15.5%, up 2.9 percentage points from November.
From the average growth rate of each month in the fourth quarter and two years, the total retail sales of social consumer goods, real estate and infrastructure investment weakened month by month, while only industrial production and manufacturing investment strengthened month by month. This shows that insufficient domestic demand is still the main problem facing the current economy. Although the export data in December performed well, it is unlikely to exceed last year this year due to the marginal weakening of US consumption and the impact of the interest rate hike cycle of the US Federal Reserve.
In terms of consumption, the consumer confidence index is far lower than the pre epidemic level, which deviates from the unemployment rate, indicating that the structural problem of high unemployment rate among Chinese young people is prominent, which has an adverse impact on the overall consumption capacity and consumption stamina; Coupled with the recent resurgence of the epidemic, the production of the service industry is bound to be affected and decline. Therefore, the growth rate of residents' consumption in 2021 is much higher than that of income, which is certainly unsustainable.
In terms of investment, manufacturing investment is still outstanding. Infrastructure investment has improved marginally in December, and will further hit the bottom and recover this year with the support of active fiscal policy; However, from the perspective of real estate investment, the growth rate of real estate investment in December was - 13.9%, down 9.6 percentage points from November. The year-on-year growth rate of bank loans in real estate development funds was - 10.8%, down 0.8 percentage points from November, and the transaction area and construction area of real estate decreased significantly. In short, from the real estate data in December, although the state has issued a series of measures to stabilize the market, the rapid decline of the real estate industry has not been fundamentally reversed.
