China's economic trend in the first four months is in focus

"Under the combined effect of economic recovery, continued release of policy effects and a low base in the same period last year, the year-on-year growth rate of main production demand indicators picked up significantly in April." Fu Linghui, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics, said at a press conference on the same day.

On the production side, industrial production grew steadily and the service sector enjoyed a good growth trend. From January to April, the added value of industrial enterprises above designated size increased by 3.6 percent year on year, 0.6 percentage points higher than that from January to March. In April, the service industry production index grew by 13.5 percent year on year, among which, the production index of accommodation and catering industry, wholesale and retail industry, transportation and other industries were significantly faster than the overall service industry production index.

Lack of aggregate demand is a prominent contradiction facing the current economic operation. A meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee on April 28 pointed out that "the current economic turnaround is mainly restorative, with internal impetus not strong and demand still insufficient."

The latest data show that domestic demand continues to expand. With the orderly recovery of consumption scenes, people's propensity to consume gradually increased, and service consumption improved significantly. From January to April, the total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 8.5% year on year, 2.7 percentage points faster than the January-March period. Total retail sales of consumer goods rose 18.4 per cent year on year in April, with restaurant revenue up 43.8 per cent. The investment scale continued to expand. In the first four months of this year, fixed asset investment grew by 4.7 percent year-on-year, 0.4 percentage points lower than that in the first three months of this year.