SCIO press conference on China's economic performance in H1 2022
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E-mail China.org.cn, July 20, 2022
CCTV:
Since the beginning of this year, complex changes have occurred both at home and abroad. What are the characteristics of economic growth in China? What are your views on the economic operation of the first half year? Thank you.
Fu Linghui:
Thank you for your questions. Since the beginning of this year, the international environment has become increasingly complex and grave, and the Ukraine crisis has further evolved; at home, there have been frequent and sporadic COVID-19 cases. Such emergency factors have gone beyond our expectations. As a result, the Chinese economy suffered a certain degree of fluctuations. Following a better-than-expected recovery in January and February, major economic indicators declined markedly due to international factors and the pandemic impact at home in March and April; then, since May, economic performance has been gradually stabilizing and rebounding, and much more positive changes have been taking place as a package of policy measures to stabilize the economy and control the pandemic in a coordinated manner gradually pay off. The main characteristics are as follows.
First, the economy managed to grow against a headwind. Since the beginning of this year, the international situation has become increasingly complex and grave, and the global economy has slowed down evidently; at home, frequent and sporadic pandemic cases have dealt a heavy blow to economic stability. The downward pressure the Chinese economy faces added greatly in April particularly. In response, all localities and departments have followed the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council to effectively coordinate pandemic control and socioeconomic development. We have stepped up macroeconomic policy adjustment and rolled out a package of policy measures to stabilize the economy, thus effectively stabilizing the economy's fundamentals and scoring growth in the second quarter. China's GDP grew 2.5% in the first half year and 0.4% in the second quarter, which was hard won given the decline in major production and demand indicators in April and May. It showed the strong resilience of the Chinese economy.
Second, prices have remained stable on the whole. Affected by geopolitical conflicts and increased liquidity of the world's major economies, the prices of major commodities, especially those of grain and energy, have remained high, adding to the impact of imported inflation on China. Against such a backdrop, China has stepped up market supply to stabilize prices, worked hard to ensure grain and energy output, and thus managed to keep domestic prices stable. In the first half year, consumer prices rose by 1.7% year on year, lower than the whole-year target of around 3%. The core CPI, excluding food and energy prices, remained stable by gaining 1% yearly. Rising prices in China have been much lower than that of Europe and the United States, providing favorable conditions for stabilizing the economy and improving the people's wellbeing.
Third, employment and people's livelihood have been guaranteed. Due to the epidemic outbreak, the employment pressure has risen sharply this year, and increasing personal income and ensuring people's wellbeing have become more difficult. Focusing on addressing acute issues, government authorities and departments continued to step up efforts to provide employment stability and strengthen efforts to meet people's basic living needs. Progress has been made in this regard. In the first half of the year, the newly increased employed people in urban areas totaled 6.54 million. The surveyed unemployment rate in urban areas has fallen for two consecutive months since May, reversing the earlier upward trend. In June, the rate dropped to 5.5%. The surveyed unemployment rate of the population aged 25 to 59 was 4.5%, roughly the same as in January. People's income has increased steadily. In the first half of the year, personal per capita disposable income increased by 3% in real terms year on year, slower than the first quarter but faster than the economic growth. The national per capita net income from transfers witnessed a nominal growth of 5.6%, a 0.9 percentage point higher than the growth rate of total income.
Fourth, China's foreign trade has shown resilience. The impetus for global trade growth has been weakening since the beginning of this year. The new export order index of the worldwide manufacturing PMI has been below the 50-point mark for four consecutive months. However, China's foreign trade has maintained rapid growth, overcoming the adverse effects of the tightening external environment and the epidemic outbreak, which showed the strong resilience of China's foreign trade. In the first half of the year, the total volume of trade in goods grew by 9.4% year on year, with exports up by 13.2%. The total volume of trade in goods grew by 14.3% in June year on year, up 4.7 percentage points from the previous month.
Fifth, the momentum of transformation and upgrading has continued. Despite the complex and grim external environment and growing downward pressure on the domestic economy, China continued to boost innovation-driven development and the momentum of transformation and upgrading remains unchanged, with the new impetus growing fast. In the first half of the year, the value added of high-tech manufacturing enterprises above the designated size went up by 9.6% year on year, and the investment of high-tech industries grew by 20.2% year on year, maintaining fast growth. The online retail sales of physical goods went up by 5.6%, accounting for 25.9% of the total retail sales of consumer goods. The structure of the Chinese economy has been adjusted and improved. The value-added of the manufacturing sector accounted for 28.8% of the GDP in the first half of the year, up a 0.7 percentage point year on year. The per capita income of urban households was 2.55 times that of rural households, 0.06 less than last year. We continued to promote the green transformation. The share of clean energy consumption increased by 1.3 percentage points in the first half of the year, and the output of new energy vehicles and solar batteries grew by 111.2% and 31.8% respectively.
In general, the country's economy has maintained growth by overcoming difficulties in the year's first half, showing the recovery momentum. However, the recovery of the domestic economy is still facing many challenges due to the complex and grim external environment. Next, following the decisions and deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, we will effectively coordinate epidemic control and prevention and economic and social development and promote the implementation of policies and measures to stabilize growth to promote sustained and sound economic development. Thank you.
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