Boost in retail, investment shows enhanced recovery
Print Edition
CHINA’S key economic indicators for November released yesterday showed strengthening recovery, indicating a world-beating growth trend, as consumption and investment gradually return to normal levels.
Retail and investment, two main growth drivers, have picked up the pace, with market entities and the employment sector showing strong vitality in November, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Retail sales of consumer goods went up 5 percent year on year in November, up from the 4.3 percent surge in October, sustaining the upward momentum since the major consumption gauge posted its first positive growth in August this year.
An annual sales promotion extravaganza in November by China’s e-commerce giants has also opened consumers’ wallets in a further boost to orders for small factories.
Auto sales saw 11.8 percent growth and sales of household appliances grew 5.1 percent in November. Communications equipment sales jumped 43.6 percent.
Fixed-asset investment edged up 2.6 percent year on year in the first 11 months of the year, up 0.8 percentage points from the rise in the first 10 months. During the January-November period, investment by the private sector, which accounts for 60 percent of total investment, rose 0.2 percent, the first growth registered this year.
The surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 5.2 percent in November, registering a four-month declining streak.
Julian Evans-Pritchard, a senior economist at Capital Economics, said the unemployment rate was now back to pre-virus levels and was underpinning China’s retail sales growth.
Industrial output growth quickened to 7 percent in November from a year earlier, the fastest pace in 20 months. The services sector also saw further recovery. In November, it expanded 8 percent from a year earlier, 0.6 percentage points faster than the rise in the previous month.
Strong resilience
Shining light on the November data, NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui said the sustained recovery fully demonstrated the economy’s strong resilience and potential in the face of unprecedented COVID-19 impact.
Fu added that major gauges in November pointed to faster economic growth in Q4 from Q3, as both production and demand have continued to soar steadily.
“Looking ahead, China is expected to become the only major economy in the world to achieve positive growth in 2020,” Fu told a press conference. “As the economy gradually returns to normal operation, better economic growth for the whole of 2020 is expected.”
Thanks to robust year-on-year growth of 4.9 percent in its gross domestic product in the third quarter, the country’s economy expanded 0.7 percent in the first nine months, bucking a 1.6 percent contraction in the first half and a 6.8 percent contraction in the first quarter when the virus took its toll.
China did not set any numerical growth target this year. In the second half of 2020, domestic investment and consumer demand have continued to recover, and this positive trend could extend in 2021. “China’s economy will run with many favorable factors next year, and it is more likely that the economy will gradually return to the potential growth level,” Fu said, adding that the growth rate in 2021 may be relatively high due to the low base this year.
Factory activity growth hit a more than three-year high in November, an official survey showed earlier this month, as fewer COVID-19 infections boosted consumer confidence.
Exports also surged at their fastest pace in almost three years thanks to demand for personal protective equipment and electronics products for working from home.
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