The consumer market is picking up steadily, and the bright spot data reflects positive changes.
In August, the national consumer market continued to recover, and the latest price data showed that China’s economic operation was gradually improving.
According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on September 9, in August, the national consumer price index (CPI) changed from a year-on-year decrease of 0.3% to an increase of 0.1%. It rose by 0.3% from the previous month, with an increase of 0.1 percentage point over the previous month. The year-on-year increase of CPI turned positive, releasing the signal of economic recovery.
Consumption is an important part of the economic cycle and plays a fundamental role in economic growth. In August, non-food prices changed from the same level last month to a year-on-year increase of 0.5%, which played a pulling role in the year-on-year increase of CPI. Supported by the summer travel demand, the prices of air tickets, travel and hotel accommodation increased by 17.6%, 14.8% and 13.4% respectively. Affected by the fluctuation of international crude oil prices and the improvement of demand, the year-on-year decline of industrial consumer goods prices narrowed by 1.1 percentage points compared with last month.
Since the beginning of this year, the consumer market has recovered in an orderly manner, and the relationship between supply and demand has gradually improved. A series of policies and measures to promote consumption continued to exert their strength to promote consumption to continue to pick up.
On July 24, the the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee meeting emphasized that it is necessary to actively expand domestic demand, give play to the basic role of consumption in stimulating economic growth, expand consumption by increasing residents’ income, and promote effective supply through terminal demand, and organically combine the implementation of the strategy of expanding domestic demand with deepening structural reform on the supply side; It is necessary to boost the bulk consumption of automobiles, electronic products, homes and other services, and promote the consumption of sports, leisure, cultural tourism and other services.
Subsequently, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other departments and localities continued to introduce measures to stabilize consumption, promote the development of the private economy, adjust and optimize real estate policies, and effectively promote various measures to take effect as soon as possible. Among them, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Measures on Restoring and Expanding Consumption" to promote the recovery and expansion of consumption in 20 aspects. The Ministry of Commerce designated this year as the "year of boosting consumption" and launched a series of consumption promotion activities around various consumption scenarios. The recovery of the consumer market in August is the result of many factors.
At the same time that the overall consumer price has rebounded, the ex-factory price of industrial products has also shown signs of recovery. In August, PPI (ex-factory price index of industrial producers) increased from the previous month, and the year-on-year decline narrowed. The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) of the manufacturing industry in August was 49.7%, up 0.4 percentage points from last month, indicating that the prosperity of the manufacturing industry has further improved. Among them, both the production index and the new order index have reached the high point in the past five months, indicating that production demand has picked up and manufacturing activities have accelerated.
At present, the international environment is complex and changeable. As the second largest economy and the second largest consumer market in the world, the rebound of many economic indicators in China has sent a positive signal to the international market. Recently, UBS Wealth Management Agency and Fidelity Fund all expressed their optimism about China’s consumption recovery and economic growth prospects.
With the widespread commercialization and popularization of information network technologies such as artificial intelligence, mobile Internet, metauniverse and blockchain, online consumption has become an important part of people’s daily life. In 2022, China’s online retail sales amounted to 13.79 trillion yuan, and the e-commerce platform, which is the key monitoring platform of online retail market in China, has accumulated over 120 million live broadcasts, with over 1.1 trillion people watching, over 95 million live products and nearly 1.1 million active anchors. From January to May, 2023, the national online retail sales accounted for 30.3% of the total social consumption retail sales. In the "618" shopping festival in 2023, the cumulative sales of the whole network such as integrated e-commerce platforms and live broadcast platforms reached 798.7 billion yuan, a record high in the past six years, an increase of 480.625 billion yuan over 2019. As a typical representative of the new format of digital economy, online retail e-commerce platform has become a new engine to stimulate consumption, smooth circulation and boost the economy.
Looking forward to the next stage, Mid-Autumn Festival, National Day and other holidays are expected to continue to drive consumption to pick up steadily, and policies such as promoting household consumption, "recognizing housing but not lending" and adjusting the interest rate of existing mortgage loans are also expected to have a positive and long-term impact on consumption. With the acceleration of the package of policies and measures and the improvement of both supply and demand, the growth momentum of China’s economy will gradually increase, and more warmth can be expected. (Yang Guangwang commentator Zhang Shengqi)