Since the end of February, excavators have entered the peak sales season again, especially for medium-sized excavators. The company has exhausted its production capacity to guarantee supply, but shortages still occur from time to time. "Miao Jianguo, deputy general manager of Sany Heavy Machinery Marketing Co., Ltd. recently told reporters that the sales of excavators in my country from January to February this year increased by nearly 150% year-on-year, and the sales data in March remained high.
According to industry insiders, the continued “out of stock” of excavators strongly reflects the current strong demand for construction machinery and increased macroeconomic vitality. It is expected that the GDP in the first quarter will achieve a “double-digit” growth year-on-year. As consumption continues to pick up, its role in stimulating the economy will be more obvious. It is expected that the GDP growth rate in the second quarter will exceed 8% year-on-year.
Excavator is "difficult to find"
Since the beginning of this year, sales of excavators, which are the "barometer" of infrastructure construction, have frequently hit new highs.
According to an industry website, sales of excavators in March were about 72,000 units, an increase of about 45.7% year-on-year. Among them, domestic sales were about 67,000 units, a year-on-year increase of about 43.8%; export sales were about 5,000 units, a year-on-year increase of about 78.7%.
“Last year’s excavator sales were off-season and the market characteristics continued to this year.” Miao Jianguo said, “The factory had to work overtime to produce in response to the increasing orders from dealers across the country. At present, the supply of medium-sized excavators is particularly tight, and we have opened Fully horsepower, shift work day and night, do everything we can to guarantee the supply, but some shortages still occur from time to time." He told reporters that at present, some short-selling models require appointments, and some orders even need to wait more than a month.
It is understood that in my country's construction machinery market, medium-sized excavators have always been the mainstay of market sales. They are mainly used in municipal infrastructure, road and bridge construction, real estate projects, mining and other fields, especially in real estate construction. Behind the surge in excavator sales data, more reflects the increased vitality of infrastructure.
According to the big data of Infrastructure Communication, as of mid-March, 16 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions have issued construction investment plans for key and major projects in 2021. The total number of projects is about 14,754, and the total project investment is about 30.34 trillion yuan in 2021. The annual planned investment is about 6 trillion yuan. In addition, since February, the total amount of approved projects in the field of infrastructure is about 203.1 billion yuan (only relatively large projects are counted).
"In the second quarter, infrastructure growth is expected to rebound, supporting the continued strong economic recovery." Gao Ruidong, chief macro economist at Everbright Securities, believes that the progress of local project expenditures last year was slower than the issuance of special bond funds, estimated to be about 1 trillion yuan. Special debt funds are kept in place. As the construction industry speeds up construction after the Spring Festival this year, this part of the retained funds will gradually be converted into physical investment. Superimposed on the “advanced approval” special bonds issued by the Ministry of Finance in March, they will be issued to work together and the growth rate of infrastructure is expected to rebound.
The consumer market continues to pick up
As a leading indicator of the economy, the latest service industry PMI for March revealed a signal of accelerated recovery in service consumption. Statistics show that the service industry PMI in March rebounded sharply by 4.4 percentage points to 55.2% month-on-month. Among them, the catering industry, cultural, sports and entertainment industries that were more affected by the epidemic rebounded significantly, and the business activity index and new order index of related industries Compared with the previous month, there was a significant increase.
Hu Wenyan, a senior researcher at the Macroeconomic Research Center of the Caixin International Economic Research Institute, predicts that the service industry is expected to pick up faster in the second quarter, leading to a significant acceleration in consumption restoration.
In order to further promote consumption, many ministries and commissions and local governments have recently launched consumption promotion measures, ranging from accelerating the cultivation of new consumption to launching a new round of new energy vehicles to the countryside, to carrying out various consumption promotion activities and issuing consumer vouchers, which involve automobile consumption. , Cross-border e-commerce and new types of consumption.
Li Qilin, chief economist of Hongta Securities, believes that as the impact of the epidemic on the economy gradually weakens, and the superimposed expansion of domestic demand to promote consumption policies form a joint force, some offline consumption and optional consumption will usher in a definite boom.
“In the next step, as the epidemic prevention and control situation is improving steadily, market supply continues to be optimized, various policies and measures are effective, and the consumer market will continue to show a recovery growth trend.” Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Bingnan said a few days ago.
The economy maintains recovery
"Under the combined influence of the accelerated improvement of consumption and investment demand in manufacturing, and the combined influence of exports, real estate, and infrastructure, the economy is expected to remain hot in the second quarter." Hu Wenyan predicts that GDP will increase by about 8.4% in the second quarter of this year.
It has become a consensus that the economy maintains a recovery trend. The Bank of China Research Institute recently released the "Economic and Financial Outlook Report for the Second Quarter of 2021". It is believed that in the first quarter of the effective coordination of epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, my country's economy has continued the steady recovery since the second quarter of last year. It is expected in the first quarter. GDP increased by about 16.7% year-on-year.
The report believes that with the overall acceleration of the global economic recovery. my country's economy will continue to recover, and GDP in the second quarter is expected to grow by about 8.2% year-on-year.
Experts pointed out that from the perspective of driving economic growth, consumption in the second quarter is expected to have a more obvious effect on the economy.
