Mao Shengyong:
4. Investment on fixed assets slowed and became more stable; private and manufacturing investment achieved an apparent increase.
During the first three quarters, nationwide fixed assets investment (except for peasant households) totaled 48.34 trillion yuan, up 5.4 percent year on year, the growth rate being 0.6 percentage points lower than in the first half of the year, but 0.1 percentage points higher when considered from January to August. Among the relevant figures, private investment reached 30.17 trillion yuan, up 8.7 percent year on year, with the growth rate 0.3 percentage points higher than in the first half year and 2.7 percentage points higher than the same period of last year. Viewed from an industrial sector perspective, investment in primary and secondary industries increased 11.7 percent and 5.2 percent respectively. Manufacturing investment grew 8.7 percent, 1.9 percentage points higher than in the first half of the year, and the increasing momentum has been maintained for the past six months. Investment in the tertiary sector increased 5.3 percent, while that for infrastructure grew 3.3 percent. During the same period, investment for real estate development totaled 8.87 trillion yuan, up 9.9 percent year on year. The area involved in commercial housing sales totaled 1.19 billion square meters, up 2.9 percent year on year and the sales volume reached 10.41 trillion yuan, a year-on-year gain of 13.3 percent.
Mao Shengyong:
5. Export growth rate accelerated and imports increased remarkedly.
In the first three quarters, imports and exports of goods totaled 22.28 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.9 percent. The growth rate was 2.1 percentage points higher than in the first half of the year. Breaking the figures down, Chinese exports reached 11.86 trillion yuan, a year-on-year gain of 6.5 percent, the rate being 1.8 percentage points higher than that in the first half of the year. Meanwhile, imports increased 14.1 percent to 10.43 trillion yuan, 2.5 percentage points higher than in the first half. The foreign trade surplus shrank 28.3 percent year-on-year to 1.43 trillion yuan. Imports and exports involving our major trade partners have all seen increases, being up 7.3 percent, 6.5 percent and 12.6 percent respectively to the EU, the United States and the ASEAN. In addition, exports to and imports from some key countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative maintained sound growth momentum, with increases of 19.4 percent, 11.9 percent and 11.8 percent respectively to Russia, Poland and Kazakhstan. In September, the total volume of imports and exports reached 2.89 trillion yuan, up 17.2 percent year-on-year. Exports increased 17.0 percent to 1.55 trillion yuan while imports increased 17.4 percent to 1.34 trillion yuan. In the first three quarters, the delivery value of exports of industrial enterprises above designated size reached 8.97 trillion yuan, up 8.1 percent year-on-year. The September figure was 1.18 trillion yuan, up 11.7 percent year-on-year.
