Vital to balance investment with consumption

The total profits made by industrial enterprises above the designated size between January and October reached 5.01 trillion yuan ($760 billion), up 0.7 percent yearon-year. It is also the first time this year that the accumulated profits of such enterprises changed from negative to positive, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics show.

In October, industrial enterprises’ output above the designated scale remained high at 6.9 percent year-on-year. Retail sales grew 4.3 percent from a year before and 1 percentage point from that a month ago, September.

The nationwide investment volume in the January-October period registered 1.8 percent growth yearon-year, 1 percentage point higher than the January-September period. Real estate investment grew by 6.3 percent and infrastructure investment by 0.7 percent, 0.7 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points higher than the first ninemonth period respectively.

All this shows that China’s economy is recovering at a steady pace, thanks to combined policies adopted by the Chinese government after it managed to bring the novel coronavirus epidemic under control. In order to maintain the quality of China’s economic recovery, the government knows it needs to adopt some policy measures and also refrain from turning to excessive stimulus programs.

Therefore, while adopting proactive fiscal policies, the government has tried to slowly promote economic recovery through the market’s internal forces to strike a balance between stable growth and risk prevention.

However, China should further strengthen the balance between investment and consumption, as its smooth economic recovery hinges on a number of factors.

First, as winter arrives in the Northern Hemisphere, the epidemic situation is beginning to worsen, especially in the United States and Europe, adding to uncertainties over China’s exports to these economies.

Second, in response to the epidemic, China has adopted a proactive fiscal policy and a more flexible and appropriate monetary policy. The growth rate of broad money supply and social financing scale remains significantly higher than that of last year, which could lead to a certain cyclical mismatch. In the future, it is inevitable for the country to return to normal monetary supply and stabilize the macro leverage ratio, which may have some impact on its economic growth.

Third, over the past few months, a sustained surge in auto sales has driven consumer growth. However, given the impact of the epidemic on employment and income in rural areas, and the longer cycle of vehicle replacement in rural areas, it remains to be seen whether the continuous growth of auto sales can sustain, although a series of new auto consumption measures have been adopted by the government.