Speakers:
Yao Jingyuan, special researcher of the Counsellors' Office of the State Council
Xu Xianchun, professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, and director of Tsinghua China Data Center
Chairperson:
Xing Huina, deputy director general of the Press Bureau of the State Council Information Office (SCIO) and spokesperson of the SCIO
Date:
Oct. 18, 2021
Xing Huina:
Friends from the media, good afternoon. Welcome to this briefing held by the State Council Information Office (SCIO). This morning, we held a press conference to present China's economic data from the first three quarters of 2021. The briefing this afternoon will further analyze the economic performance in the first three quarters of the year. At this briefing, we are joined by two experts: Mr. Yao Jingyuan, special researcher of the Counsellors' Office of the State Council; and Mr. Xu Xianchun, professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, and director of Tsinghua China Data Center. They will start by giving you their interpretations of the economic data and then take your questions.
Next, I'll give the floor to Mr. Yao Jingyuan.
Yao Jingyuan:
According to the principles of economics, a country's overall economic situation can be analyzed from four indicators: the growth of gross domestic product (GDP), job creation, consumer prices, and balance of payments.
The first indicator is GDP growth. China's GDP registered a year-on-year increase of 9.8% in the first three quarters of the year. As we know, according to the Government Work Report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang in March, China aimed to expand its economy by over 6% in 2021. The latest estimate by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also said that China's economy will grow by 8%. I estimate that annual growth in 2021 will reach about 8%. Therefore, the GDP growth rate is within our expectations.
The second indicator is job creation. In the first three quarters of the year, China added 10.45 million new urban jobs in the first three quarters, achieving 95% of the annual target. The surveyed unemployment rate in the first three quarters stood at 5.2%, which was 0.5 percentage point lower than the same period last year, and also lower than the 5.5% target for this year put forward by Premier Li Keqiang in the Government Work Report this March. The employment of migrant workers was also very good. Some 3.51 million new migrant worker jobs were added in the first nine months of the year, close to the level in 2019.
The third indicator is consumer prices. Plenty of people were worried about inflation at the end of 2020 and the beginning of this year. Yet the actual situation is that, in the first nine months of 2021, the consumer price index (CPI) went up by 0.6% year on year. Compared with the 3% target set at the beginning of this year, China's consumer prices generally remained at a low level and stable.
The fourth indicator is balance of payments. Many experts and scholars did not expect that China's foreign trade could sustain such good growth momentum. In the first three quarters of the year, the total value of imports and exports was 28.33 trillion yuan, which is a comparatively high level historically speaking. Specifically, exports increased by 22.7% year on year, and imports went up by 22.6%, achieving a basic equilibrium. China's actual use of foreign capital amounted to 758 billion yuan in the first eight months of the year, up more than 20% year on year.
Based on these four indicators, it is fair to say that China's economy has remained within the set growth range. In addition, against the backdrop of the pandemic and its unprecedented fallout, China's economy is currently recovering. Of course, there are some things worth noting seen from the economic data in the first half and third quarter of 2021. For example, there has been a downward movement in the economy from the second to the third quarter, which we will discuss later.
I'll stop here for now. My analysis aims to offer you a method to interpret China's economy, which is to analyze it based on these four indicators. These four major indicators show that China's economy is currently in a sound stage of recovery. Thank you.
