China.org.cn | October 20, 2020
Second, jobs and people's livelihood are well guaranteed. In the face of unprecedented employment pressures at the beginning of this year, all local authorities and government departments implemented a policy giving priority to employment. People's livelihood has guaranteed and improved with the continuous increase of coffer budget. First of all, let's take a look at employment. A total of 8.98 million new urban jobs were created in the first three quarters, almost meeting the annual target. The surveyed unemployment rate is stable with a decline in September in urban areas to 5.4%, compared to 6.2% at the beginning of this year. The national per capita disposable income of residents in the first three quarters witnessed a real increase of 0.6%, roughly in line with the 0.7% of economic growth. Price increases have been moderate. The consumer price in the first three quarters grew by 3.3% year-on-year. Specifically, the consumer price index in September went up by 1.7% year-on-year. Social security has provided particularly strong bottom-line support this year. The national per capita pension and retirement pension posted an 8.7% nominal increase year-on-year; per capita income from social relief and subsidies grew 12.9% and per capita income from policy-based living subsidies expanding 11.1%. They all maintained rapid growth, far faster than the overall growth of residents' income.
Third, new growth drivers are playing a leading role. Under the impact of the epidemic, the impetus for industrial transformation and development has accelerated significantly. New driving forces represented by the Internet economy are growing and have played a positive role in helping the epidemic prevention and control, ensuring people's livelihood and boosting economic growth. In the first three quarters, the added value of high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing grew by 5.9% and 4.7% year on year respectively, both faster than the growth in the first half of the year. Investment in high-tech industry grew by 9.1%, posting big growth of 2.8 percentage points faster than the first half. New business forms and models like online shopping and livestream selling has continued apace. There is a strong emerging demand for working from home, online medical consultation and online education. The online retail sales of physical goods in the first three quarters went up by 15.3% year-on-year, one percentage point faster than the first half of the year, accounting for 24.3% of the total retail sales of consumer goods. The new infrastructure and consumption featured by 5G construction and rail transportation has played an enhanced leading role. In September, the output of urban rail vehicles, smart watches and new energy vehicles increased by more than 50%, 70% and 50% year-on-year respectively. Generally speaking, these new economic sectors are playing a significant role in driving the overall economy.
On the whole, the overall national economy continued a steady recovery in the first three quarters. However, while fully recognizing the trend of recovery, we should also note that the current epidemic situation overseas is still severe and the international environment remains instable and uncertain, together with insufficient effective domestic demands and imbalanced recovery in different regions, sectors and enterprises. The foundation for sustained recovery needs to be consolidated. So, next we would stick to the requirement of promoting high-quality development and building new development pattern, and making solid efforts to stabilize employment, finance, foreign trade, foreign investment, domestic investment, and meeting market expectations, comprehensively, implementing the tasks to safeguard employment, people's livelihood, market entities' prosperity, food and energy security, stability of industrial and supply chains and operations at grassroots levels, forge a solid foundation for safeguarding people's livelihood and assist enterprises addressing difficulties in order to fulfil the whole-year targets for development. Thank you.
Beijing Youth Daily:
Recently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised its forecast for China's economic growth for the whole year. Do you think China's economic recovery will accelerate in the fourth quarter? How would you forecast China's economic trend for the whole year? What do you think the main difficulties are facing China's economic operation at present? Thank you.
Liu Aihua:
Thanks for asking. Given the fact that the economy as a whole showed sustained and steady recovery in the first three quarters, with a growth of 4.9% in the third quarter in particular, people are more concerned about whether the trend will continue in the next stage. In terms of various factors including demand and production as well as the confidence and vitality of the whole market, we believe we have the foundation, conditions and confidence to maintain the current trend in the fourth quarter and even for the whole year.
First, demand is gradually picking up. Investment in fixed assets went up by 0.8% year-on-year in the first three quarters, shifting from negative to positive for the first time in 2020. In terms of leading indicators, the total planned investment in new projects registered year-on-year growth of 14.6% in the first three quarters, a double-digit growth rate that is 1.1 percentage points faster than the first half of the year. The funds actually allocated for fixed asset investment increased by 4.8% this year, flat with that in the first half of the year. Investments will continue the current trend from negative to positive and further rebounding. Regarding consumption, the quarterly growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods turned positive for the first time this year. In terms of growth, the growth rate of 14 of the 18 surveyed commodity categories turned positive, and six of them achieved double-digit growth. Regarding the service industry, the average daily sales of the national retail and catering businesses under close monitoring grew 4.9% year-on-year during the golden week of the National Day and Mid-Autumn Day holiday, according to data from relevant monitoring authorities. You might have felt the popularity of scenic spots and cinemas during the golden week. On a comparable basis, the number of visitors has rebounded to 80% of that of last year while the revenue has recovered 70%. The recovery is good and indicates that residents' demand for both physical goods and services consumptions is recovering against the context of the current effective epidemic prevention and control.
Second, the industrial cycles continue to improve. We have stepped up efforts this year to break through the industrial and supply chains sticking points in order to ensure the production of key industries and products. Generally speaking, the industrial cycles are gradually improving. Firstly, the rate of capacity utilization is rising quarter by quarter. China's industrial capacity utilization rate was 76.7% in the third quarter, up 2.3 percentage points from the second quarter. Specifically, auto manufacturing rebounded three percentage points, general equipment manufacturing 1.7% points, and computer communications and other electronic equipment manufacturing 0.5% points. The recovery of downstream industries, which had been lagging behind upstream industries, has also improved in recent months. The added value of consumer goods manufacturing above the designated size rose 3.2% year-on-year, compared to the 0.8% decline of last month and shifting to growth for the first time from declines in consecutive months. Most of the service sector registered positive growth. Six of the eight sectors that make up the service production index have registered positive growth, with double-digit growth in information transmission software and information technology services.