China’s power consumption in 2009 rose 5.96 percent to 3,643 billion kilowatt hours, the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced recently. Read More…

Stimulus policies spurring Chinese domestic consumption will be maintained in 2010, while high sales growth of home appliances and automobiles due to the stimulus packages will not affect consumption, analysts predict. Read More…

Not a recent piece of news, but it would be interesting to see if the trend has been updated since then: a Chinese expert predicted 55 percent Chinese households will have a yearly income over 60,000 yuan (8,0407 U.S. dollars) by 2020, the Beijing Morning Post reported in Beijing. Read More…

Since reform and opening up the urbanization of China has increased rapidly, with the number of cities in China reaching 655 by the end of 2007, an increase of 462 compared to 1978, according to a report released today by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS). The number of cities at prefecture-level and above has increased from 111 in 1978 to 287 in 2007. Read More…

Urban Chinese saw their disposable income expand 3.4 percent in the first quarter of 2008, the lowest increase for the same period since 1997.

The per-capita disposable income of the country’s urban households rose 11.5 percent year on year in the first three months to 4,386 yuan (about US$ 626.6). However, after counting in inflation, the growth slowed to 3.4 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on recently.

The growth reflected a deceleration of 13.2 percentage points compared with the same January to March period a year earlier. It was the lowest first-quarter figure since 1997, when urban income edged up 1.2 percent amid high commodity prices.

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Zhang Xiaojing, an expert with the Institute of Economics of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the government should try to increase people’s earnings with the commodity prices being at high levels, or the living standard would go down.

The statistics were based on the calculation of a NBS survey result, which covered 59,000 urban households nationwide.

China’s inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), was up 8 percent in the first quarter. In February, the index rose 8.7 percent above the same period a year earlier, a 12-year high, but eased to 8.3 percent in March.

China’s consumer price index(CPI) rose 8.5 percent in April, mainly driven by uncurbed food costs, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said recently.

The figure, compared with 8.3 percent in March and a nearly 12-year-high of 8.7 percent in February, was broadly in line with most forecasts.

The NBS attributed the figure to a low base of comparison: the CPI rose just 3 percent in April 2007. Another factor was the rapid increase in world grain and commodity prices.

“Price rises are stable in general. Compared with March, the CPI in April was not substantially higher and prices of some items even fell,” said Zhang Liqun, a macro-economist with the Development Research Center of the State Council, China’s Cabinet. “That means fewer new driving factors for price rises.”

Following the release of consumer prices, China’s Central Bank announced a raising of the reserve requirement for another 0.5 percentage point to 16.5 percent on yuan deposits, effective on May 20.

The consumer price index, the main gauge of inflation, rose 8.1 percent in cities and 9.3 percent in rural areas last month.

“The CPI figure remains high because of a low base last year and the soaring prices of primary food on the international market to push up domestic food costs,” said a statement on the bureau’s Website.

Food prices, which make up around one third of the CPI basket, soared 22.1 percent in April.

The cost of pork rocketed 68.3 percent from a year earlier while edible oil jumped 46.6 percent and vegetables grew 13.6 percent.

The non-food sector saw a growth of 1.8 percent last month, compared to 1.6 percent in February. The March figure was not available.

“The growth is in line with our estimate ranging between 8.3 to 8.5 percent for April. It is still a stable growth and the inflationary pressure will gradually ease in the coming months,” said Li Maoyu, an analyst with Changjiang Securities.

Tao Dong, a Credit Suisse economist, shared that view but cautioned about price increases in the non-food sector.

“We believe the CPI is likely to moderate over the next few months, as food inflation can be curbed by a higher base and improved pork supplies. However, we are cautious about non-food inflation fueled by wage hikes in the medium term,” Tao said.

The producer price index, the factory-gate inflation gauge, jumped 8.1 percent year on year in April to reach a record high in more than three years, boosted by accelerating energy and raw material prices.

Beijing’s consumer price index (CPI) rose 6.5% in April, according to the latest statistics from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics and the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics Beijing Survey Organization. Food prices rose 21.6%; while non-food prices rose 0.3%. Consumer goods prices rose 8.7% and that of service rose 0.8%.

Food prices increased by 21.6% as compared with the same month last year, among which grain prices increased 9.0%; oil prices increased 29.2%; meat and its products prices increased 46.8%; egg prices increased 6.3%; aquatic products increased 19.9%; and vegetables prices increased 11.4%.

The following are the three categories with a decline in CPI in April: traffic and communication prices dropped 3.6%; entertainment, education and service prices dropped 2.4%; and clothing prices dropped 0.4%.

According to the China’s National Bureau of Statistics report – 2007 national economic and social development statistical communique – China’s total number of privately-owned vehicles increased 32.5% to 15.22 million. The communique points out that by the end of 2007, the total number of civilian vehicles reached 56.97 million (including 14.68 million three-wheel motor vehicles and low-speed vehicles): a growth of 14.3% over the previous year. Among them, 35.34 million are private cars: an increase of 20.8%. There are 19.58 million civilian cars, an increase of 26.7%, 15.22 million of which are private cars.

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The executive vice president of the China Automobile Industry Association (CAAM), Dong Yang, pointed out that the structure of China’s residential consumption is shifting from mainly food and clothing to living and transportation. Many families still do not own a car. There is a demand for cars from Chinese consumers. In the future, China’s auto market will continue to maintain rapid development.

“They will continue to expand at double-digit rates in 2008,” he added.

In 2006, China overtook Japan to become the world’s second largest car market, trailing only the United States, with sales of7.2 million units, up 25.13 percent from a year earlier. The country was also the world’s third largest vehicle producer, after Japan and the United States.

Currently, vehicle ownership in China was 44 for every 1,000 people. This was compared with the world average of 120. The United States had 750 vehicles for every 1,000 people.

Dong said the domestic car market had huge potential as the country had 57 million motor vehicles by the end of last year. Among them were 21.5 million privately-owned cars, according to latest government figures.

“Motor vehicles will play an extraordinarily-important role in China’s consumer spending,” he said, as the economy maintained fast growth and the government tried to encourage people to spend money.

Total auto sales in China jumped to 7.95 million units in the first 11 months of 2007, up 23.2 percent from a year ago, according to CAAM data.

Vehicle sales in November alone rose 16.3 percent in comparison to the same period a year earlier to 800,900 units.

Shanghai Traffic
credits: Itamar & Fabiane Medeiros

China may produce more than 8.6 million vehicles this year as it narrows the gap with Japan and the United States, the world’s top two auto makers, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

In 2003, China turned out 4.44 million vehicles and sold out 4.37 million, an increase of 36.6 percent and 34.5 percent respectively over the previous year. Among them, there were 2.01 million cars with 1.97 million. of them sold, up 84.4 percent and 80.7 percent respectively. China then outran France to become the world’s fourth large auto manufacturer.

China’s economic growth, averaging about 10 percent over the past five years, is raising demand for automobiles and has boosted production from about 100,000 vehicles a year in the 1980s to 7.28 million last year, making the country the world’s third-biggest vehicle producer.

“The industry is facing a grave overproduction situation,” the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Chen Bin, deputy director of the commission’s industrial department, as saying. China’s annual vehicle output capacity was already at eight million complete units, with a further 2.2 million units of annual capacity under construction and soon due to be completed. Without government action to curb investment, China’s auto factories could be turning out up to 20 million vehicles a year by 2010, Chen said.