On April 20, Beijing ’s first quarter economic data was released. According to the results of the unified accounting of regional GDP, the city achieved a regional GDP of 746.22 billion yuan in the first quarter, which is a 6.6% year-on-year decrease at comparable prices.
Pang Jiangqian, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics, said that the COVID-19 epidemic had a big impact on Beijing’s economy in the first quarter. However, as the city’s overall promotion of epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, the main indicators showed a rebound trend in March. In the second quarter, with the consolidation of the epidemic prevention and control achievements, market vitality and momentum will be further strengthened, and the city’s economy will accelerate recovery.
With the national epidemic prevention and control entering the normalization, the Politburo meeting held on April 17 proposed the “six guarantees” for the first time: to ensure residents’ employment, basic people’s livelihood, market participants, food and energy security, and stability of the industrial chain supply chain. 1. Maintain basic operation. Against the background of normalization of epidemic prevention, how can Beijing’s economy and society develop in an integrated manner with epidemic prevention and control? How to implement the “six guarantees”?
Focus 1. GDP dropped by 6.6% year-on-year. What is the economic trend in the second quarter?
According to the unified accounting results of regional GDP, the city achieved a regional GDP of 746.22 billion yuan in the first quarter, which is a 6.6% year-on-year decrease at comparable prices. In terms of different industries, the added value of the first industry reached 1.27 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 22.9%; the added value of the second industry reached 90.96 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 17.5%;
Pang Jiangqian, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics, said that the COVID-19 epidemic had a big impact on Beijing ’s economy in the first quarter. With the prevention and control of the epidemic and the overall promotion of economic and social development, the main economic indicators showed a rebound in March, and some have recovered. Security has potential.
Pang Jiangqian said that the city’s economy is gradually recovering. With the implementation of various policies, the work resume rate has increased significantly from the end of February, and the main economic indicators have rebounded. The added value of the service industry declined in the first quarter, but the superior industries showed strong resilience and provided important support. Various industries that were affected by the epidemic have recovered to varying degrees compared to February.
At the same time, basic livelihoods are effectively guaranteed, and the necessities of life and epidemic prevention materials are better protected. During the epidemic, the retail sales of supermarkets increased by 16.9%. The price increase has dropped somewhat, and the employment situation is basically stable. The income of residents continued to increase, and the income of low-income farmers maintained rapid growth.
Regarding the economic situation in the second quarter, Pang Jiangqian said that the main indicators showed a rebound in March, the basic livelihoods were effectively guaranteed, and emerging momentum was growing. In the second quarter, with the consolidation of the epidemic prevention and control achievements, market vitality and momentum will be further strengthened, and the city’s economy will accelerate recovery.
“Although the external situation is more complicated and severe, and the uncertainties are increasing, the fundamentals of Beijing’s long-term economic improvement have not changed, and the overall trend is to pick up and improve and continue to improve.” Pang Jiangqian said.
Focus The employment situation improved in February and March. When will the employment pressure ease?
In the first quarter, the unemployment rate in Beijing ’s urban survey was 4.3%, which remained stable. Bian Jing, deputy head of the Beijing Survey Corps and spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that in the first quarter, due to the impact of the epidemic situation and the seasonal factors of the Spring Festival, the pressure on urban employment in Beijing increased. As the epidemic prevention and control situation improved, the city’s resumption of work and production accelerated. The urban employment in the city rebounded in March and the employment situation began to improve.
Bian Jing said that due to the hysteresis of the epidemic’s impact on the employment situation, Beijing’s employment situation in the second quarter is still facing great pressure. On the whole, the fundamentals of employment stability in Beijing have not changed, and the overall pressure on employment in the second half of the year will be alleviated.
Employment is the biggest livelihood. Among them, college graduates, migrant workers, and labor in poor areas are the key groups for “stable employment”. At present, the Beijing Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Department has issued a number of measures to stabilize employment, and has introduced specific service measures for college graduates, returning workers and groups with employment difficulties.
Beijing made it clear that operating human resource service agencies that provide employment introduction services for key enterprises will be granted a one-time employment and entrepreneurship service subsidy during the epidemic prevention and control period. Enterprises that urgently need materials can enjoy a one-time employment subsidy. At the same time, Beijing requires that all types of employers should not refuse to hire relevant personnel on the grounds that they are from a severe epidemic area.
For small and medium-sized micro-insured enterprises that are greatly affected by the epidemic, face temporary production and operation difficulties, and are expected to resume, and insist on no or fewer layoffs, the monthly per capita unemployment insurance gold standard and the employees who are insured in Beijing in the previous 6 months Number of people, return unemployment insurance premiums. According to reports, unemployment insurance premiums have been returned to 4,750 enterprises, benefiting 1.09 million employees.
In response to the impact of the epidemic, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and other relevant departments have previously issued a series of measures to “stabilize employment.” For example, labor dispatching guarantees for key enterprises, “point-to-point” services for returning migrant workers to the job, “slow-free” for social security assistance enterprises, unemployment insurance to stabilize enterprises, and hundreds of millions of online recruitment.
From the effect point of view, in February, the three social insurance premiums of enterprise pension, unemployment and work injury were reduced by 123.9 billion yuan. Among them, small and medium-sized enterprises directly benefited from 94.2 billion yuan from the exemption of social insurance premiums, and large enterprises directly benefited from 20.9 billion yuan from the reduction of social security premium In January-February, a total of 2.19 million people were paid unemployment insurance money of 6.1 billion yuan, and paid 1.3 billion yuan of basic medical insurance premiums for people receiving gold.
Focus 3. Declining offline consumption and slowing residents’ income, how to promote consumption?
In the first quarter, the total retail sales of consumer goods in Beijing was 271.65 billion yuan, a decrease of 21.5%. Among them, the retail sales of goods was 256.46 billion yuan, down 19.0%, and the catering revenue was 15.19 billion yuan, down 48.4%. Online retail performance was active, with online retail sales of wholesale and retail, accommodation and catering above designated size at 80.74 billion yuan, an increase of 15.9%.
At the same time, the growth rate of residents’ income slowed down in the first quarter. The per capita disposable income of Beijing residents was 17,874 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.7%. After deducting price factors, the actual increase was 0.9%. Four incomes “three rises and one fall”: wage income increased by 4.9% year-on-year, transfer net income increased by 9.6%, property net income increased by 2.3%, and net operating income decreased by 29.1%.
In order to promote consumption, recently explored the issuance of consumer coupons and implemented a 2.5-day holiday. At the same time, with the support of relevant policies, small and medium-sized enterprises have gradually been activated, and the large number of services and consumption provided by them have also “revived”.
Li Guoping, the dean of the Capital Development Research Institute of Peking University and a member of the Beijing Municipal Government ’s Expert Advisory Committee, believes that consumer coupons must be “spent out” within the prescribed time due to the limitation of time, so it has a good effect on stimulating consumption in the short term .
Li Guoping also emphasized that the issuance of consumer vouchers will also be of some help to low-income people and families with difficulties. For example, the consumption scope of consumer vouchers can cover all daily necessities, which solves the basic living security of low-income people and families and saves them. Basic livelihood.
Lai Yang, a professor at Beijing Vocational College of Finance and Trade, also believes that the issuance of consumer coupons not only promotes consumption, but also protects the basic livelihood of the people. At the same time, the livelihood of the people is preserved, and consumers will have no worries about their consumption.
Li Guoping also reminded that in practice, how much, how, and to whom the consumption voucher is issued needs to be fully considered, especially in the identification of low-income and difficult families.
Lai Yang believes that in addition to increasing residents’ consumption capacity, enriching the consumption supply and making the consumption supply more adaptable to demand is also the key to promoting consumption. The physical business has been significantly impacted, and the resources are idle. Enterprises can consider cooperating with third-party platforms to integrate the resources of the physical business through the platform to provide consumers with richer choices.
Focus 4. How will the new business forms spawned during the epidemic develop in the future?
The epidemic has given birth to the development of emerging economies. In January-February, Beijing ’s Internet and related service industry enterprises ’revenue increased by 9.6%; online consumption increased. In the first quarter, online retail sales of Beijing ’s online wholesale and retail, accommodation and catering industries increased by 15.9%; 70% or more.
Pang Jiangqian said that online education, online medical care, remote office and other business volumes have grown significantly during the epidemic, and new formats such as contactless distribution and live broadcast retail are also accelerating. All these have accelerated Beijing’s economic development and brought new momentum to Beijing’s future economic growth.
At the same time, the economic structure has further strengthened the resilience of Beijing’s economy. For example, high-precision technology has achieved rapid growth, and the financial services industry has grown well. These have provided good support. At the same time, high-tech manufacturing and service industries have grown significantly, which has also provided important guarantees for subsequent industrial upgrading. In addition, technological innovation has provided technical support for combating the epidemic.
“The epidemic has made us aware of Beijing’s shortcomings in urban construction. In the future, it will also fill in the shortcomings to improve the level of urban construction and the quality of economic development.” Pang Jiangqian said.
Regarding how the new economy spawned during the epidemic develops in the future, Lai Yang believes that the new consumption spawned during the epidemic needs to be further consolidated, expanding its scale and efficiency, and making it a new economic growth point.
“It is necessary to get through the terminal logistics as soon as possible, and on the basis of the epidemic prevention measures in place, so that more commodities can be delivered to the consumers’ homes,” Lai Yang said that although Beijing has proposed orderly promotion of express delivery into the community at this stage, it is still difficult to implement It needs to be promoted as soon as possible to release the consumer demand that is thus suppressed.
Lai Yang believes that Beijing, as the capital, has certain characteristics compared with other cities, and the epidemic prevention standards may be stricter. After the prevention and control of the epidemic has entered normalization, the key to the above measures to promote consumption lies in the need to ensure the prevention and control of the epidemic, and physical businesses must be upgraded.
Focus 5. Beijing pushes the “new 9”, how important is the role of insurance market players?
In the “Six Guarantees” proposed by the Politburo meeting on April 17, the market players are not only responsible for residents’ employment, but also related to basic people’s livelihood. According to official data, SMEs have undertaken more than 70% of Beijing’s employment, and a large number of SMEs are concentrated in the service industry, which accounts for about 80% of Beijing’s economic share.
This group of small, medium and micro enterprises has become the group most affected by the epidemic. Data show that in the first quarter, the city’s added value of the tertiary industry was calculated at comparable prices, a year-on-year decrease of 4.8%. At the same time, corporate income tax revenue in the first quarter was 30.56 billion yuan, a decrease of 20.7%. The Beijing Municipal Finance Bureau said that the decline in corporate income tax was mainly due to the high base in the same period last year and the reduction in the business activities of some companies affected by the epidemic.
In response to the impact of the epidemic, and to ensure the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, Beijing has taken specific measures. On February 5, Beijing released 16 measures to help small and medium-sized enterprises overcome difficulties (“16”); on April 17, Beijing issued another 9 measures (“new 9”) to support small and medium-sized enterprises Respond to the impact of the epidemic and maintain steady development.
“New 9 Articles” continues and develops “16 Articles”, further “blood production” on the basis of “blood transfusion”. “Not only to help enterprises solve the pressure of cost and capital, but more importantly, to help small, medium and micro enterprises to cycle on the basis of good epidemic prevention and control, and conduct business normally.” Tan Xuxiang, director of the Beijing Development and Reform Commission, said.
The reporter noticed that the “new 9 articles” focused on reducing rents and smoothing financing channels for small and medium-sized enterprises. Five of them were directly related to the active promotion of the business development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Support and assistance in key areas.
Lai Yang believes that support such as interest-bearing loans has played a very good role. Many companies have received loans to start operations, and companies have entered a virtuous circle. But at the same time, it should also be noted that during the epidemic, many industry companies are temporarily unable to operate normally. At this stage, enterprises are actually under pressure to obtain loans. After resuming work, they must pay their employees normally, but resuming work does not mean resuming production. If there is no income , Companies face pressure on loan repayment.
As another example, some business types belong to joint department stores and do not charge rent. Although these types of business types are also affected by the epidemic, they cannot enjoy the support policy of rent subsidies; some large commercial facilities have multiple operating entities, but share a license. Many support policies cannot be enjoyed. Lai Yang believes that the relevant support policies are gradually introduced, and the next step can cover a wider range, focusing on the deeper dilemmas of enterprises.