Consumption adds momentum to the economic cycle

Recently, with the overall promotion of epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, the production and living order has been accelerated, the income growth rate of the national residents has maintained a rebound, and the consumer market has continued to rise steadily. Analysts believe that the strong resilience of China’s consumption has become an important ballast stone for China’s economy to resist the wind and waves in the first half of the year. In the second half of the year, the continuous efforts of policies such as expanding domestic demand, helping enterprises to bail out difficulties and stabilizing employment are expected to promote further compensation and recovery of consumption, thus adding more impetus to promoting the "big cycle" of domestic economy and the "double cycle" of domestic and international.

Income recovery and demand recovery

According to the latest data, in June, the total retail sales of consumer goods nationwide was 3.35 trillion yuan, down 1.8% year-on-year, and the decline narrowed for four consecutive months, with a cumulative decrease of 18.7 percentage points. From January to June, the total retail sales of social consumer goods was 17.23 trillion yuan, down 11.4% year-on-year, and the decline was 7.6 percentage points narrower than that in the first quarter.

"In the first half of the year, all localities adhered to the orientation of people’s livelihood, issued various consumer vouchers, developed the’ night economy’ through the integration of literature and tourism, helped invigorate the’ small store economy’, expanded consumption according to local conditions and took various measures to vigorously promote the recovery of household consumption. In the first half of the year, the decline in per capita consumption expenditure of the national residents narrowed significantly, with the nominal decline and the actual decline narrowing by 2.3 and 3.2 percentage points respectively compared with the first quarter. Residents’ daily necessities such as rice, flour, grain and oil, vegetables, meat, poultry and eggs were fully guaranteed, and residents’ home meals increased. In the first half of the year, the per capita expenditure on food, tobacco and alcohol increased by 5.0%, 2.9 percentage points faster than that in the first quarter. " Fang Xiaodan, director of the Household Survey Office of the National Bureau of Statistics, said.

It is worth noting that the rising growth rate of national residents’ income is inseparable from the gradual recovery of residents’ consumption level. The data shows that in the first half of the year, the per capita disposable income of the national residents was 15,666 yuan, a nominal increase of 2.4% over the same period of last year, and the nominal growth rate was 1.6 percentage points higher than that in the first quarter. After deducting the price factor, the actual decline was 2.6 percentage points narrower than that in the first quarter. At the same time, in the first half of the year, the per capita wage income of the national residents was 9010 yuan, an increase of 2.5%, 1.3 percentage points faster than that in the first quarter, and the per capita disposable income of the national residents increased by 1.4 percentage points.

Fang Xiaodan said that in terms of wage income, the resumption of work and production in various places has been solidly promoted, the vitality of economic and social development has recovered, and the economic fundamentals have laid the foundation for wage income growth; In operational income, the phased tax reduction and fee reduction, rent reduction and interest rate reduction, inclusive finance and other policy support have effectively reduced the production and operation costs of self-employed households and small and micro enterprises, and their operating conditions have improved compared with the first quarter.

There are many highlights in online consumption.

In the first half of this year, "offline limited online replenishment" became an important feature in the consumer field.

According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, under the prevention and control of the normalized epidemic situation, new consumption formats and new modes such as online shopping, online entertainment and online classroom are growing against the trend. For example, in the first half of the year, the number of people buying goods or services through the Internet generally increased, and the per capita postage expenditure increased by 10.8%. For another example, in order to meet the needs of home office study, the per capita spending on home desktop computers and notebook computers increased by 19.4% and 79.6% respectively in the first half of the year.

According to the Report on Economic War and Epidemic in 2020 yards jointly released by Tsinghua University China Economic and Social Research Center and Tencent Social Research Center, in the economic recovery, leisure, entertainment, restaurants, hotels and transportation rebounded most significantly, and the number of WeChat transactions increased by 7-10 times. In the last week of April, the average daily commercial transaction volume of WeChat payment has recovered to the level of the end of 2019. The report believes that the innovation of online mode under the WeChat ecosystem will further promote the upgrading of people’s lifestyles, and the depth and breadth of lifestyle online will enter a new stage, and scene, intelligence and personalization will become the development trend of lifestyle change.

Fu Yifu, a senior researcher at Suning Financial Research Institute, analyzed that in the first quarter, affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, the all-round rise of online consumption was the biggest highlight. In the second quarter, as the domestic epidemic prevention and control situation continued to improve, all walks of life resumed production and markets steadily, and the intensity of new kinetic energy for online consumption did not decrease. At the same time, offline consumption scenes such as scenic spots, restaurants and hotels also returned to the public’s field of vision, and many consumers’ consumer demand that was forced to postpone during the epidemic prevention and control period began to restart.

Zhao Ping, director of the International Trade Research Department of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, believes that the epidemic has further enhanced consumers’ online consumption habits, and the growth rate and proportion of online consumption have continued to increase, which has become the biggest highlight of consumption growth in the first half of the year. At the same time, online consumption has also spawned new consumption patterns such as community e-commerce, social e-commerce, community e-commerce and live delivery, thus effectively releasing the potential of online consumption.

Tamp the economic pressure resistance.

Weigh, a researcher at the Institute of World Economics of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out in an interview with this reporter that both the "six stability" work and the "six guarantees" task will ultimately be supported by strong consumption power. Since the beginning of this year, in the face of the great test brought by the COVID-19 epidemic, China has scientifically handled the relationship between the prevention and control of normalized epidemic and economic and social development, especially by adjusting the consumption pattern in time and effectively meeting the rigid consumption demand, thus achieving the maximum risk hedging and economic stability.

"In the process of gradually forming a new development pattern with domestic big circulation as the main body and domestic and international double circulation promoting each other, consumption is an important connection point of domestic and foreign market players and plays a very important role. Judging from the actual situation in the first half of the year, the rebound of consumer demand in China has not only become an important supporting force for China’s economy to resist all kinds of risks, but also injected strong confidence into the world economy. In the future, the role of consumption will be further highlighted. " Weighing theory.

In the eyes of many analysts, consumption is a clear manifestation of China’s economic resistance to pressure in the first half of the year. Yu Hong, a senior researcher at the Institute of East Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, believes that China has a huge domestic market and a vibrant regional economy. In addition, the government has launched targeted fiscal, taxation and financial measures to support enterprises, which plays an important role in restoring economic growth and shows the resilience and potential of China’s economy.

Xing Ziqiang, chief economist of Morgan Stanley China, said that compared with developed countries, China’s consumption structure is currently dominated by physical consumption. In the future, as residents gradually pursue high-quality life, their consumption focus will shift from meeting basic needs to increasing life experience, and their consumption structure will also shift to service consumption. Xing Ziqiang predicts that consumption will gradually recover in the second half of this year and become the mainstay of economic growth next year, driving economic growth back to its potential level. (Reporter Wang Junling)