According to the China Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) released by the Service Industry Survey Center of the National Bureau of Statistics and the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing yesterday, the PMI of the manufacturing industry was 50.6% in February, a decrease of 0.7 percentage points from the previous month and remained at the same level for 12 consecutive months. Above the line of prosperity and decline.

According to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, the momentum of economic stability recovery has not changed. The changes in the sub-indices show that the Spring Festival factors have driven the index to fall, but the market supply and demand growth rate is still at a relatively good level. New momentum continues to grow rapidly, and the supporting role of large companies has strengthened. Companies are more optimistic about the market outlook. The current rapid rise in raw material prices and the slowdown in employment growth are worthy of attention.

Zhao Qinghe, a senior statistician at the Service Industry Survey Center of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that the Spring Festival holiday this year falls in mid-February, and holiday factors have a greater impact on the production and operation of enterprises this month. Specifically, the pace of expansion of production and demand has slowed down. The production index and new order index were 51.9% and 51.5%, respectively, down 1.6 and 0.8 percentage points from the previous month.

The new export order index and import index in February were 48.8% and 49.6%, respectively, 1.4 and 0.2 percentage points lower than the previous month. Zhao Qinghe said that due to the slowdown in production and procurement activities during the Spring Festival, the manufacturing industry's foreign trade business has decreased compared with the previous month.

The analysis believes that the global epidemic reached an inflection point in early January this year. With the promotion of vaccines, the production capacity of some countries around the world is steadily recovering, and the domestic production and demand gap has narrowed. However, in the long run, the global economic recovery is good for China's exports. The recent rapid increase in commodity prices also shows that the market is optimistic about the future economic recovery. Reflected in the data, the production and operation expectations index of enterprises rose from 57.9% in January to 59.2%, and the production and operation expectations index of export enterprises reached 60.8%, reflecting that enterprises are still optimistic about foreign trade.

The China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said that there are other positive factors that are also consolidating the momentum of economic stability and recovery. First, new drivers continue to grow rapidly, and the high-end manufacturing industry is accelerating. The equipment manufacturing PMI was 52.2%, and both the production index and the new order index were above 53.5%. Although the PMI of the high-tech manufacturing industry fell by more than 1 percentage point from the previous month, it remained at a relatively high level of 53.6%, and the industry grew rapidly. Second, the supporting role of large enterprises has been strengthened. The PMI of large enterprises increased by 0.1 percentage point from the previous month to 52.2%, which was 1.6 percentage points higher than the overall manufacturing PMI. The difference reached a new high since 2020, indicating that large enterprises are still accelerating their recovery under the influence of the Spring Festival, which has a supporting effect on the economy. Enhanced.

The analysis pointed out that the current issues worthy of attention are that the prices of raw materials are still rising rapidly. The purchase price index in February was 66.7%, although it was down from the previous month, it was still at a relatively high level. Enterprise surveys show that the proportion of companies that reflect high raw material costs is 53.6%, the highest since 2018. Second, employment growth has slowed down. The employment index dropped by 0.3 percentage points from the previous month to 48.1%, which is the second consecutive month of decline. The current continuous slowdown in employment growth is due to the short-term impact of the epidemic and the Spring Festival to a certain extent. It is necessary to make further judgments based on the continued trend of the index in the later period.

Wang Jingwen, a senior researcher at Pangu Think Tank, said that rising raw material purchase prices have helped the launch plant prices rise to a relatively high level recently. In addition, the shortage of supply during the Spring Festival has also led to price increases, and it is expected that the PPI increase in February will continue to expand.

Wang Qing, chief macro analyst at Oriental Jincheng, believes that the general improvement in business expectations in February means that the downturn of the PMI index in the past two months is a short-term fluctuation and will not affect the overall economic recovery. It is expected that the various PMI indexes will rebound in March, and the GDP in the first quarter is expected to rise to around 17%-18% year-on-year.

Article information source-Securities Times

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