China’s food prosperity index was 9.01% in December, increasing slightly, but the situation was not optimistic.

By CnAgri2017-03-03 10:23:49 Print

In December, investment and exports of food industry both slid down, the growth of output also declined to some extent. Rapid growth of imports restrained the rise in economic boom index, but sharp growth in profits and consumption driven overall prosperity index up. In December, the prosperity index was 9.01%, increasing 0.35% month on month.

1 Consumption condition: the monthly retail value of catering industry was 335.2 billion yuan in December, increased by 10.6% year on year and accounted for 10.6% of total consumption of whole society in the same month, the proportion declined 0.23% month on month and 0.03% year on year. The retail turnover of food commodities of enterprises above designated size was 227.5 billion yuan, increased by 9.5% year on year and accounted for 14.22 of total retail value of all enterprises above designated size. Monthly food consumption including catering consumption and retail consumption of enterprises above designated size was 562.7 billion yuan, increasing 10.16% year on year. Food consumption accounted for 17.72% of total consumption of the whole society, and the proportion decreased 0.12% year on year.

The accumulative consumption of commercial food of inhabitants reached 5.7253 trillion yuan from January to December, increasing 10.57%. Food consumption accounted for 17.23% of total social demand. The proportion of food consumption of inhabitants increased 0.02%.

Deducting the influence of price, in December, the actual consumption of catering industry increased 8.01%, retail value of grain and oil food increased 8.5%, and food consumption totally increased 7.58%

Food consumption accounted for 7.69% of annual GDP, the percentage increased 0.04%; Food consumption accounted for 16.87% of inhabitants’ total income and 23.59% of inhabitants’ aggregate expenditure, these two proportions respectively increased 0.13% and 0.11% from the year before. The growth in these three proportions shows that the actual consumption capacity and actual income of inhabitants declined and current economic situation is not optimistic.

As for major enterprises, the consumption value of catering enterprises above designated size was 94.6 billion yuan in December, increased by 6.7% year on year, accounted for 28.22% of total catering consumption of whole society, the proportion declined 0.9% from the same period last year. The total consumption of catering enterprises above designated size was 921.3 billion yuan in 2016, increasing 6.0% year on year, and accounted for 25.74% of total catering consumption, the proportion decreased 1.1% from the year before.

As for subdivisions of food industry, the consumption value of grain & oil products, beverage and liquor & tobacco respectively was 158.6 billion yuan, 22.4 billion yuan and 46.5 billion yuan, increasing by 8.6%, 8.8% and 11.0% year on year respectively; according to historical data, they respectively increased by 8.9%,13.7% and 9.4%. The difference between the year-on-year growth and historical growth shows that the number of enterprises above designated size has changed.

According to the Ministry of Commerce’s monitoring data on key commercial enterprises, the retail value of food commodities, beverage and liquor & tobacco respectively increased 10.2%, 8.3% and 5.7%. Deducting the influence of price, national commodity retail increased 3.35%, of which, the growth rate of food, beverage and liquor & tobacco respectively was 7.62%, 8.10% and 5.50%. Nominal growth rate of sales revenue of food commodities of large scale enterprises kept stable compared with that the month before, but the actual growth rate deducting the influence of price slid down. Online food consumption increased 28.5%, which had significant impact on traditional business channel.

Synthesizing the growth rate of whole society consumption and sales growth rate of key commercial enterprises, in December the actual consumption of national food industry increased 6.77% which increased 1.84% from the month before but still was low.

2 Supply side, domestic output: In December, the nominal growth of agricultural and sideline products manufacturing, food manufacturing industry and beverage respectively was5.7%, 8.1% and 11.2%, respectively increasing 1.5%, -0.4% and 3.4% year on year.

Deducting the influence of factory price, the growth rate of output of whole society was 0.5%; the growth rate of actual output of agricultural and sideline products manufacturing, food manufacturing industry and beverage respectively was 3.22%, 7.46% and 11.98%, and the growth rate of comprehensive output of food industry increased 7.55% which declined 0.79%.

In import aspect, In December, the total import value of vegetable oil, edible animal products, liquors, rice& flour products and dried and fresh fruits was 3.501 billion dollars (converted into 23.942 billion yuan, up 17.88% year on year), increasing 9.76% year on year, and accounted for 7.43% of the total sales of enterprises above designated size. By varieties, the import value for vegetable oil, edible animal products, liquors, rice& flour products and dried and fresh fruits respectively was 574 million dollars, 1.8 billion dollars, 470 million dollars, 124 million dollars and 533 million dollars, separately increasing 9.60%, 28.64%, 5.61%, 6.37% and 22.69% year on year.

Calculated at a price mark-up ratio of 50% in middle link, the converted terminal consumption of various imported foods was 35.914 billion yuan, accounting for 11.15% of total consumption of catering and food enterprises above designated enterprises and 6.38% of total food and catering consumption of whole society. During the period from January to December, the accumulative consumption of imported foods reached 325.2 billion yuan, increasing 33.7% year on year, accounted for 5.68% of the total consumption of domestic commercial foods, the proportion increased 0.98% from the year before.

As for exports, the total export value of food was 41.9 billion yuan in December, decreasing 3.43% year on year; annual exports reached 449.99 billion yuan, increasing 1.93% year on year; monthly average exports of food was 6.067 billion dollars, reaching a year-on-year decrease of 10.00% which has been the largest decrease rate since May, 2015. Since December, 2014, the monthly exports of food saw slight growth only in two months; in 2016 the annual exports of food was 68.139 billion dollars, decreasing 2.71% from the year before, 5.64% from 2015 and 8.2% from 2014.

Imports increased, while exports decreased, actual consumption growth in domestic declined, the growth of actual consumption ability of inhabitants met resistances, so our enterprises should take effective measures to deal with weak market growth. The government should pay attention to the influence of rapid growth of consumption proportion of imported food and exports decline on whole food industry.

3 Investment condition: in December, the investment in agricultural and sideline products, food manufacturing, beverage and accommodation & catering respectively was113.8 billion yuan, 53.6 billion yuan, 38.4 billion yuan and 60.8 billion yuan, increasing by 9.95%, 21.27%, -4.45% and -7.59% year on year respectively. The total investment in these five industries was 266.6 billion yuan, increasing by 5.1% year on year, accounting for 4.6% of total investment of whole society. Growth rate of investment in food industry in December decreased further, the proportion of investment in food industry declined to some extent. The accumulative investment was 2.7664 trillion yuan from January to December, increasing 4.6% year on year, and accounted for 4.6% of total investment in fixed assets, and the proportion in total investment in fixed assets in urban area also declined.

Deducting the influence of price rise, monthly investment of the whole society actually increased 1.0% which decreased 11.7% year on year and was the lowest growth rate since 2006. Rapid growth in the prices of production materials led to further decline of actual investment.

By segments, the actual investment in agricultural and sideline products, food manufacturing, beverage and accommodation & catering increased at a relatively low monthly growth rate since March, 2008, which obviously restrained prosperity index.

4 From the perspective of industry profitability, as for grain processing link, in December, the aggregate price index of raw grain was 2311yuan/ton, the wholesale price of processed grain was 3701yuan/ton, the price differences rate was 60.41% and increased to some extent from the month before. Changes of power price brought about changes of processing cost. Synthesizing the prices of rice, flour, starch and alcohol and corresponding raw grain prices and corresponding processing cost, the gross profit margin of grain processing industry was 13.78% in December. In terms of processing profit rate by varieties, the processing profit rate of flour, japonica rice, indica rice , domestic corn starch and ethyl alcohol processed from domestic corn respectively was 14.05%, 15.15%, 14.47%, 9.33% and 12.72%. Considering basic management fee of 150yuan/ton for rice and flour processing, average logistics fee of 160-200 yuan/ton and relatively high financial cost of some large scale enterprises, the actual net profit of rice and flour processing still kept low relatively.

Synthesizing consumption, investment, output and industrial profit ratio, the monthly prosperity index was 9.01 in December, seeing some rise from the month before.