SCIO briefing on China’s economic performance in Aug.

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Speaker:
Liu Aihua, spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics

Chairperson:
Xi Yanchun, vice director-general of the Press Bureau, State Council Information Office

Date:
Sept. 14, 2017

Liu Aihua:

Third, the growth of fixed-asset investment slowed down with the investment structure becoming optimized.

In the period January-August, total fixed-asset investment (excluding rural households) was 39.42 trillion yuan, up 7.8 percent year-on-year. However, the growth rate was 0.5 percentage point lower than at the end of July. This included investment of State-owned capital of 14.38 trillion yuan and private investment of 23.91 trillion yuan, with year-on-year increases of 11.2 percent and 6.4 percent respectively. Private investment accounted for 60.7 percent of the total. Primary industry investment was 1.27 trillion yuan, up 12.2 percent from the same period last year; secondary industry investment was 14.82 trillion yuan, up 3.2 percent. This included investment in manufacturing of 12.17 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.5 percent. Investment in the tertiary industry was 23.32 trillion yuan, up 10.6 percent. Infrastructure investment totaled 8.47 trillion yuan, up 19.8 percent; hi-tech manufacturing investment increased by 19.5 percent, 11.7 percentage points higher than the growth rate of total investment. Investment in manufacturing industries with extensive energy consumption declined by 1.6 percent. A total of 39.62 trillion yuan of fixed-asset investment was available, up 2.8 percent and 1.3 percentage points from the end of July. The planned total investment in new projects was 33.01 trillion yuan, up 2.2 percent and 0.3 percentage point higher than at the end of July. Total fixed-asset investment (excluding rural households) increased by 0.57 percent month-on-month.

Fourth, investment in real estate grew in a stable way, and commodity housing for sale continued to decline.

In the period, January-August, the total investment in real estate was 6.95 trillion yuan, up 7.9 percent year-on-year. Investment in residential housing increased by 10.1 percent. Construction began on housing totaling 1.15 billion square meters, up 7.6 percent, with the area of residential housing up 11.6 percent. A total of 985.39-million square meters of commodity housing was sold, up 12.7 percent, with the area of residential housing up 10.3 percent. The sales of commodity housing reached 7.8 trillion yuan, up 17.2 percent, with the sale of residential housing up 14.2 percent. Property developers bought land totaling 142.29 million square meters, up 10.1 percent. By the end of August, the commodity housing for sale remained at 623.52 million square meters, 11.44 million square meters less than a month earlier. In the period from January to August, the capital available for property developers was 9.98 trillion yuan, up 9 percent.

Fifth, market sales continued to expand and online retailing showed good momentum.

In August, total retail sales of consumer goods reached 3.03 trillion yuan, up 10.1 percent year-on-year, 0.3 percentage point lower than the July figure, up 0.76 percent month-on-month, 0.05 percentage point higher than July. Sales of consumer goods in cities reached 2.62 trillion yuan, up 9.9 percent, while sales in rural areas reached 416.1 billion yuan, up 11.5 percent. The catering sector reported revenue of 336 billion yuan, up 10.7 percent; retailing 2.7 trillion yuan, up 10.1 percent, with retail sales of enterprises above designated size reaching 1.24 trillion yuan, up 7.5 percent. Sales of commodities regarding consumption upgrading saw fast growth, with the growth of sales of sports and entertaining commodities up 14.9 percent and that of communications equipment up 12.2 percent. In the period from January to August, total retail sales of consumer goods achieved stable growth of 10.4 percent.

In the period from January to August, online retail sales reached 4.25 trillion yuan, up 34.3 percent year-on-year, 0.6 percentage point higher than at the end of July. Online retail sales of tangible goods reached 3.21 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.2 percent, accounting for 13.8 percent of total retail sales of consumer goods, which was 2.2 percentage points higher than the same period of last year; online retail sales of Intangible goods reached 1.04 trillion yuan, up 52.9 percent.