The National Bureau of Statistics will release the economic data in August, and whether it can be improved will become the focus of attention.

　　After the overall decline of major macroeconomic indicators in July, the policy of steady growth has been intensively implemented, and whether the economic data in August can be improved has become the focus of market attention.

　　The National Bureau of Statistics will release the macroeconomic data for August on September 15th. According to institutional analysis, various support policies have been intensively implemented recently, and unfavorable factors such as high temperature and rainy weather have gradually subsided, and the economy has shown a recovery trend. The production process has improved moderately, consumption has accelerated under the impetus of summer demand release, and infrastructure investment has made great efforts, but the overall investment is still dragged down by the sluggish real estate investment.

　　Judging from the published financial and import and export data, RMB loans increased by 1.36 trillion yuan in August, an increase of more than 1 trillion yuan over July, indicating that market confidence and expectations have accelerated; The scale of social financing increased by 3.12 trillion yuan, 631.6 billion yuan more than the same period of last year, and the financial support for the real economy continued to increase. In addition, in August, the year-on-year decline of imports and exports narrowed significantly, and the chain rebounded significantly, showing signs of improvement in foreign trade.

　　The latest issue of CBN Chief Economist Confidence Index released by CBN Research Institute is 50.69, which has been rising for two consecutive months and consistently higher than 50 threshold. Economists believe that China’s economy will continue to recover.

　　Kang Yong, chief economist of KPMG China, said in the chief investigation of CBN that after the meeting of the Political Bureau in July, the government quickly launched a series of economic support policies, such as 28 measures to promote the development of the private economy, raising the special tax deduction standard, reducing the down payment ratio of real estate, lowering the interest rate of existing mortgage loans, implementing the policy of "recognizing houses but not loans" and halving the stamp duty on securities transactions. The intensive introduction of these policies reflects the government’s determination and confidence in steady growth, which will help China’s economy to stabilize and accelerate its recovery in the fourth quarter.

　　Industrial production or moderate improvement

　　Economists who participated in the chief survey of CBN predicted that the average growth rate of industrial added value in August was 4.03%, higher than the published data of 3.7% last month.

　　Judging from the leading indicators, the manufacturing PMI released by the National Bureau of Statistics in August was 49.7%, up 0.4 percentage points from last month. Due to the steady increase in market demand, the impact of extreme weather has subsided, the willingness of enterprises to produce has been strengthened, and production growth has accelerated. In August, the production index was 51.9%, up 1.7 percentage points from the previous month, and the increase was obvious.

　　Zhang Liqun, a special analyst of China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, believes that the PMI index of manufacturing industry continued to pick up slightly in August, and most sub-indicators improved, indicating that the economic recovery momentum continued to accumulate and the economy began to show signs of recovery. The expected index of production and business activities continues to improve, showing that the confidence of enterprises has increased. At the same time, it should be noted that the proportion of enterprises reflecting insufficient market demand is still above 59%, and the constraints of demand contraction on enterprise production activities are still very prominent.

　　Lu Zhengwei, chief economist of Industrial Bank, analyzed that the operating rates of major industrial products were mixed in August, crude steel output rebounded to the highest level in the same period since 2019, and the operating rates of semi-steel tires and PTA upstream and downstream remained in a high range. However, considering that the daily consumption of coal in eight coastal provinces declined in August compared with the same period of last year, it still faces certain challenges with the downstream real estate sales, and the industrial added value is the same as the same period of last year.

　　Lu Ting, chief China economist of Nomura, holds a different view. He believes that the year-on-year growth rate of industrial added value will fall back to 3.6% in August due to the slight increase in the base and the continuous weak chain. Some high-frequency data can also prove that industrial activities are sluggish. For example, in August, the steel bar output of major steel mills and the average daily coal consumption of power plants in eight southern provinces increased by 2.4% and 0.7% respectively, which was 11.6 and 6.4 percentage points lower than that in July.

　　Consumption is expected to accelerate.

　　Economists who participated in the chief survey of CBN predicted that the average year-on-year growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods in August was 3.95%, up from the published value of 2.5% last month. With the influence of extreme weather fading, and the pulling effect of summer on service consumption is still obvious, domestic consumption is expected to improve marginally.

　　Wen Bin, chief economist of Minsheng Bank, analyzed that from the perspective of major commodities, the business activity index of transportation, accommodation, catering, culture, sports and entertainment related to residents’ consumption has been in a high prosperity range of more than 55.0% for two consecutive months, and the total business volume has continued to grow rapidly. However, in August, the transaction volume of commercial housing decreased year-on-year and month-on-month, the overall market was still cold, and real estate-related consumption continued to weaken.

　　Lu Ting said that despite the slightly higher base, the zero social growth rate will accelerate to 4.0% in August. The growth of commodity consumption is still sluggish, but the previously suppressed demand continued to be strongly released in the first summer after the epidemic, driving the growth rate of catering service consumption to rise by 4.1 percentage points to 19.9%. In addition, the sales of passenger cars maintained a good growth in August.

　　Cars are the bulk of consumption, accounting for about one-tenth of the total retail sales of consumer goods. According to the latest data released by the Federation, the retail sales of passenger cars reached 1.92 million in August, up 2.5% year-on-year and 8.6% quarter-on-quarter. In August, the retail sales of the automobile market reached the highest level in the same period in history.

　　Cui Dongshu, Secretary-General of the Association, said that despite the disturbance of extreme weather such as typhoon, rainstorm and high temperature in August, the summer travel fever remained high, and the consumption of the automobile market increased well. There are frequent policy guidelines for the automobile industry at the national level, aiming at further stabilizing and expanding automobile consumption. The Ministry of Commerce has promoted the "100-city Linkage" Automobile Festival and the "Thousands of Counties and Towns" new energy automobile consumption season, and various promotional activities such as auto shows and the issuance of coupons have a good effect on boosting consumer confidence.

　　The growth rate of manufacturing investment may accelerate

　　Economists who participated in the chief survey of CBN predicted that the average growth rate of fixed assets investment in August was 3.49%, slightly higher than the published value of 3.4% last month.

　　According to the report released by the National Economic Research Center of Peking University, despite the release of liquidity and the promotion of long-term favorable investment by domestic policies, domestic real estate investment has been under pressure recently, and the superimposed external environment is tightening, and the effective demand is insufficient. It is estimated that the investment in fixed assets will increase by 3.2% year-on-year from January to August, which is 0.2 percentage points lower than that from January to July.

　　Wen Bin predicted that the growth rate of fixed asset investment would rebound from 3.4% to around 3.9% from January to August. He believes that in terms of infrastructure investment, as the high temperature and rainy weather gradually subsided, the production activities of the construction industry accelerated in August, and the business activity index of the construction industry increased by 2.6 percentage points from the previous month to 53.8%. From the high frequency index, the operating rate of petroleum asphalt plant in August was 9.2 percentage points higher than that of the previous month, and the cement delivery rate and mill operation rate have been rising for two consecutive weeks since mid-August. In August, the net financing scale of local government special bonds and urban investment bonds was 892.8 billion yuan, an increase of 555.1 billion yuan from the previous month, which will also effectively incite project investment.

　　In terms of manufacturing investment, Wen Bin said that in August, the production and operation activities in the manufacturing PMI are expected to rebound from 55.1% to 55.6%, and the BCI enterprise investment foresight index will rebound from 52.7% to 54.7%, and manufacturing enterprises are expected to improve. From January to July, the year-on-year decline in the total profit of manufacturing enterprises narrowed to -18.4%, the capacity utilization rate and PPI rebounded, and the destocking speed of enterprises slowed down significantly, which will help accelerate the growth rate of manufacturing investment.

　　In terms of real estate development investment, high-frequency data show that the average daily transaction area of commercial housing in 30 large and medium-sized cities decreased by 22.8% year-on-year, narrowing from -27% last month. The land transaction area of 100 large and medium-sized cities decreased by 40.3% year-on-year, narrowing from -42.5% last month. Xu Dongshi, chief macro analyst of china galaxy Securities, said that the growth rate of real estate development investment declined deeper than expected in the third quarter, and real estate policy optimization measures have been introduced. It is expected that the decline in real estate development investment will be narrowed in the fourth quarter.