As reported earlier, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics published the latest GDP growth figures (along with many other things that will be mentioned below).
The year-on-year GDP grow by 8.1% in real terms, missing estimates of 8.4% growth. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, GDP grew by 1.8% in real terms (seasonally adjusted, presumably), down from 1.9% in the 4th quarter of 2011.
GDP grew by 12.1% yoy in nominal terms, giving the implied GDP deflator was 3.7% for the quarter. The GDP deflator, for the first time since the financial crisis, has come close to the CPI rate of inflation, as shown in charts below.
Looking into other the components, based on the latest incoming data, the trade surplus for the first quarter accounts for 0.1% of the GDP.
Fixed asset investment continued to moderate. On a year-on-year basis, the first quarter growth (nominally) of FAI was 20.9% (real terms 18.2%), in-line with estimate of 21.0% growth. On our own estimate in deriving the numbers from individual months (instead of accumulative, which gives the following chart), the nominal growth for March 2012 was 21.1% yoy, and 16.8% in real terms, slowing down from 21.5% in February (or 17.1% in real terms).
Source: National Bureau of Statistics
Retail sales grew by 15.2% yoy in March nominally (consensus: 15.1%), or 11.3% yoy in real terms. Thus despite the fact that the trend growth of fixed asset investment continued to moderate, consumption has not picked up, in our view.
Source: National Bureau of Statistics
Industrial production grew by 11.9% yoy in March, and 11.6% yoy in the first quarter.
For other indirect gauges, crude steel production was up 10.2% yoy in March, and 6.5% yoy in the first quarter (with rather nice rebound in March), while electric power output was up 7.2% yoy in March, and 7.1% yoy in the first quarter.
Source: National Bureau of Statistics
On the whole, the report provide a mixed picture beyond the below-expectation 8.1% growth. This report confirms our long-held belief that the economy has slowed more than the consensus recognised. However, we did notice that some recent indicators provided some positive notes, which suggested that even though the economy has slowed down more than most realised, there are signs of stabilisation of activity, particularly towards March 2012. And in this report for the first quarter, the data looks very mixed. Thus despite the disappointment of the GDP growth figure, we are probably not as pessimistic as we were for the short-term.
For longer term, however, problems persists.