China Economy by Numbers

China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew 11.9 percent year on year in the first quarter to 8.06 trillion yuan ($1.19 trillion), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced.

The increase is 5.7 percentage points higher than the same period last year when the economic growth slowed to 6.2 percent, the lowest in a decade. It also accelerated from 10.7 percent in the fourth quarter. [Full Story]

China's CPI up 2.2% in Q1

China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, increased by 2.2 percent in the first quarter from the previous year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced.

CPI growth in March was 2.4 percent year-on-year. [Full Story]

China's Q1 PPI up 5.2%

China's producer price index (PPI), a major measure of inflation at the wholesale level, increased by 5.2 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2010, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced.

March's PPI rose 5.9 percent from the previous year, the NBS said. [Full Story]

China's industrial output up 19.6% in Q1

China's industrial output increased 19.6 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2010, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

The figure is a 14.5 percentage points rise from the same period last year. In March, the figure rose 18.1 percent year-on-year.

China's industrial production recovered rapidly since the first quarter of last year thanks to the government stimulus package and national guidelines issued to support the development of 10 major industries. [Full Story]

China's retail sales up 17.9% in Q1

China's retail sales, the main gauge of consumer spending in the world's fastest-growing economy, rose 17.9 percent year-on-year to 3.6374 trillion yuan ($532.56 billion) in the first quarter this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

The figure was 2.9 percentage points higher than the same period last year, said NBS spokesman Li Xiaochao.

Urban consumption hit 3.06 trillion yuan, up 18.4 percent year-on-year, while rural residents spent 580.3 billion yuan, up 15.4 percent. [Full Story]

China fixed asset investment up 25.6% in Q1

Fixed asset investment rose 25.6 percent year-on-year to 3.53 trillion yuan ($517 billion) in the first quarter of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

Urban fixed asset investment climbed 26.4 percent from a year earlier from in the first quarter while that in rural areas increased 21 percent, according to the NBS. [Full Story]

China's FDI up 7.7% in Q1

Foreign direct investment (FDI) to China increased 7.7 percent year-on-year to $23.44 billion in the first quarter, vice commerce minister Ma Xiuhong said.

A total of 5,459 overseas-funded ventures were established in the past three months, up 19.9 percent from the corresponding period last year. [Full Story]

China's PMI of manufacturing sector up in March

The Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for China's manufacturing sector stood at 55.1 percent in March, up 3.1 percentage points from last month, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) said Thursday.

It was the 13th straight month that the index was above 50 percent.

The PMI includes a package of indices to measure manufacturing sector performance. A reading above 50 percent indicates economic expansion, while that below 50 percent indicates contraction. [Full Story]

China's March property prices jump a record 11.7%

China's property prices rose at a record pace in March, indicating more drastic measures may be needed amid concern of a bubble in the nation's housing market.

Residential and commercial real-estate prices in 70 cities climbed 11.7 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website.

The government announced in March developers will have to pay a higher deposit for land purchases and banned banks from lending to builders found to be hoarding land or holding back home sales in anticipation of higher prices. [Full Story]

China's fiscal revenue posts 34% increase in Q1

China's fiscal revenue rose 34 percent year-on-year to 1.96 trillion yuan ($287 billion) in the first quarter, boosted by rising tax revenues, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) announced. The rise was also a result of a lower comparison base for the same period last year, said the MOF in a statement posted on its website.

The government took in 602.3 billion yuan in March, up 36.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the MOF. [Full Story]

China reports trade deficit in March, 1st time in 6 yrs

China's trade balance turned red in March, the country's first monthly trade deficit in six years, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said.

China exported $112.11 billion of goods and services in March, up 24.3 percent year on year, while the imports surged 66 percent year on year to $119.35 billion , resulting in a trade deficit of $7.24 billion.

The March deficit was China's first since it posted a 2.26 billion deficit in April 2004, according to a report released by the GAC. [Full Story]

China's new loans reach 2.6t yuan in Q1

China's new yuan-denominated lending in March slump to 510.7 billion yuan ($74.8 billion) from February's 700.1 billion yuan, the People's Bank of China said

The March figure brought new yuan-denominated loans in the first quarter to 2.6 trillion yuan, 1.98 trillion yuan less than the corresponding period of last year. [Full Story]

Round Table

Xiao Jianzhong, expert with Hangzhou Academy of Social Science.

China cannot move ahead if its huge rural population is stuck in the past.

Rural culture can be protected in two ways: by building cultural heritage museums and by earmarking cultural and ecological preservation zones. But museums display objects that cannot be preserved. Cultural and ecological preservation zones, on the other hand, can preserve the originality and integrity of rural culture. The problem is that such zones cannot be expanded to cover all village cultures around China. [Full Story]

Qi Jingmei, senior economic analyst with the State Information Center.

The expanding income gap between urban and rural areas, rich and poor, as well as between different industries and different regions has pushed the Gini coefficient, a measurement of wealth inequality, to 0.48 in 2007, exceeding the 0.4 cautionary level.

A workable mechanism to bridge the widening income gap will also be established. In this process, forcible measures have been vowed to ban any illicit incomes and the government has promised to create a transparent and open income distribution system. [Full Story]

You Nuo, business editor of China Daily.

Premier Wen Jiabao's report explained where China will spend money - urban construction and social programs.

In practice, all the hope comes down to urbanization. That covers more services tied to various social programs now available only in cities. [Full Story]

What does China's urbanization mean for employment and rural culture?

China is urbanizing at an unprecedented pace, with over 43 percent of its population, or 560 million people, already living in cities today.

Zhao Zhihao, research scholar in sociology with East China Normal University.

Developing more cities in central and western China is one way of correcting the imbalance between the developed eastern and southern regions and the backward western areas.

And they can use Chongqing as a reference point. [Full Story]

Su Qi, Beijing based commentator.

Very few rural workers would choose to return to their hometowns and find work there even if their job prospects diminish greatly in cities.

The realistic and feasible way for China is to eschew the policies that encourage rural people to go back home.

China should consider how to develop cities better as a safety valve to release the pressure of unemployment generated by the country's rapid economic development. [Full Story]