Supported by holiday-driven consumption and trade-in policies, consumer spending has accelerated its recovery. The faster issuance of special bonds has spurred an earlier start to infrastructure projects, leading to improved production and sales of construction machinery, providing robust support from the investment side. The new export orders index has shown a notable rebound, indicating improved external demand... Recent macro data releases convey positive signals, pointing to a favorable economic start for China in the first quarter.
Consumer spending continues to recover. Data from Suning.com shows that from April 4 to 6, foot traffic in its nationwide stores increased by 62% compared to the previous period, with sales rising by 33.5%. During the Qingming Festival holiday, travel demand was strong, with sales of travel-related items such as AI imaging smartphones, action cameras, and smart wristbands increasing by over 50% compared to the previous period.
Since the beginning of the year, the sustained recovery in consumption has been reflected in various data points. According to invoice data, from January 1 to March 25, service consumption maintained relatively rapid growth, with sales revenue from homestay services and residential services increasing by 15.3% and 7.3% year-on-year, respectively. The extended Spring Festival holiday boosted the cultural and tourism markets, with active cultural tourism and leisure entertainment sectors. Sales revenue for travel agencies and related services, as well as culture, sports, and entertainment industries, increased by 14.3% and 14.1% year-on-year, respectively.
The vitality of service consumption is being unleashed, with the holiday economy showing a significant pulling effect. The continued positive trend in the service sector's prosperity level further confirms the good momentum of consumption recovery. Data released on March 31 shows that the Business Activity Index for the service sector was 50.2% in March, up 0.5 percentage points from the previous month. The Services Business Activity Expectation Index was 54.8%, remaining at a relatively high level.
In the first quarter, driven by the extended Spring Festival holiday and trade-in policies, both total retail sales of consumer goods and service consumption showed a good recovery momentum. Entering the second quarter, the growth of consumption will depend more on the recovery of household income expectations and the sustainability of consumption willingness.
Excavators are standard equipment in infrastructure construction and serve as a barometer for observing the progress of infrastructure projects and fixed asset investment indicators. The latest excavator index reveals that in February, the national operating rate for port equipment was 33.61%, a year-on-year increase of 3.91 percentage points, with workload growth rate rising by 12.13% year-on-year. Despite the impact of the Spring Festival holiday, port equipment achieved year-on-year growth in both operating rate and workload. In February, seven types of specialized equipment, including container handlers, pavers, and mixer trucks, saw year-on-year growth in their operating rates.
Statistics from major manufacturers show that from January to February, a total of 3,090 truck cranes were sold, a year-on-year increase of 5.71%. Domestic sales reached 1,550 units, up 2.38% year-on-year, while exports totaled 1,540 units, an increase of 9.3% year-on-year.
Analysis suggests that, driven by the accelerated issuance of special bonds, indicators related to infrastructure and construction starts have shown marginal improvement. On one hand, the issuance of new special bonds for construction projects has accelerated; on the other hand, major engineering projects are being implemented faster, leading to stronger infrastructure investment in March.
Regarding manufacturing investment, invoice data indicates that from January 1 to March 25, corporate spending on purchasing machinery and equipment, which reflects enterprise equipment updates, increased by 8.4% year-on-year, maintaining a relatively fast growth trend. Specifically, purchases of machinery and equipment by the information technology services and scientific research and technical services sectors grew by 15.8% and 27.2% year-on-year, respectively, showing strong momentum for equipment renewal.
Overall, supported by profit recovery, equipment update policies, and the expansion of high-end manufacturing, manufacturing investment is expected to continue its slight recovery.
Leading indicators show a clear improvement in external demand. Data shows that the new export orders index within the Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) was 49.1% in March, an increase of 4.1 percentage points from February.
High-frequency data indicates that global manufacturing has remained in an expansionary state recently, with overall external demand relatively strong. Despite the impact of the timing shift of the Spring Festival, China's exports in March still had a significant uplifting effect on domestic manufacturing sentiment.
Shipping market data also concurrently releases positive signals of strengthening external demand. Data shows that as of April 3, the China Containerized Freight Index stood at 1,184.70 points, up 4.0% from the previous period (March 27). The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index was 1,854.96 points, an increase of 28.19 points from the previous period (March 27).
Experts believe that the sustained improvement in China's economic prosperity level and the consolidation of the economic recovery and upward trend provide solid support for the stable development of China's export container shipping market.
Looking ahead to the second quarter, thanks to China's industrial advantages in "new three" categories, exports are expected to maintain a high growth trajectory.