Issue No.4, 2017 (Total 90)

2017-06-30

In May 2017, China’s economy continued its stable performance with limited deceleration of growth. The year-on-year industrial growth increased by 6.5%, equal to that of April. The growth of industrial electricity consumption and transport volume continued to slow down. Due to the fact that the government has delegated more decision-making power to enterprises for production and investment, the enterprises’ profits showed a tangible improvement, and the market-oriented new driving forces were strengthened. The growth of fixed asset investment continued to fall back whereas the investment of manufacturing industry inched upward. Besides, the growth of consumption kept stable and that of the real estate sales continued a downturn performance as home prices in the most sought-after cities began to drop. Since the external environment became more favorable, the growth of export increased by a narrow margin. The growth of M2 declined to single figures and the growth gap between M1 and M2 continued to decrease. The exchange rate between RMB and US dollar remained stable and the foreign exchange reserves continued to pick up. On the whole, China’s economy still maintains the momentum of a positive and stable development although the aggregate demand has slowed down in the short run. It should be noted that financial de-leveraging cycle is not yet over. The impact exerted by tight liquidity and reallocation of funds will last for some time, and the influence brought about by the adjustment of the real estate market onto investment and consumption still needs to be further observed. The trend of excessive leverage ratio boosted by local governments and the related risks still demand close attention. The policies of financial supervision should be further coordinated to avoid excessive fluctuation of the market. In addition, we need to take measures to cut enterprises’ costs so as to realize the goal of reducing taxes and fees. We need to regulate local governments’ debt financing to avoid excessive increase of implicit debts. We need to further supply-side structural reform and stimulate the internal impetus to growth so as to enable the economy to perform smoothly with a mid-to-high growth.