PBOC finds consumer mood is turning darker even as economy grows
Consumers turned increasingly negative about income, employment, and prices in April to June, the poll showed. The release of the survey results has become unpredictable in recent years, with the data for the first and second quarters published at the same time on Friday (Jul 25) instead of at a regular interval as in the past.
The figures throw a spotlight on a worsening vulnerability for China, whose economy powered through US President Donald Trump's trade war largely on the strength of its exports. The data also revealed that people's willingness to consume dropped to the weakest since the outbreak of the pandemic, with almost two-thirds of respondents saying they want to save more, while an employment index fell to a record low.
'The latest data paint a downbeat picture,' Goldman Sachs economists led by Yuting Yang said in a note.
Deepening household pessimism about income and employment likely means that faster retail sales growth since late last year was mostly thanks to government subsidies, instead of improving consumer sentiment.
It underlines the challenge for Chinese policymakers to prop up consumption in a sustainable way in the absence of an improvement in the labour market.
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Retail sales grew 5 per cent in the first half of the year, an improvement from 2024 but still weak compared with an 8.2 per cent expansion in the same period before the pandemic in 2019. That drop in demand has created an oversupply of many goods, pushing prices down.
The data also showed a shrinking percentage of respondents expecting consumer and housing prices to rise. It's an outlook that spells more trouble for the property sector, which has seen home prices falling since 2022 and continues to erode people's wealth as the value of their assets drops.
Loan demand from companies of all sizes fell in the second quarter from the first three months of the year, according to a separate survey of banks, with the indicator of overall loan appetite dropping by more than 16 points to the weakest level since at least 2009.
The GDP deflator, a broad measure of prices across the economy, declined for the ninth consecutive quarter, extending the longest streak since the quarterly data began in 1993. Little relief appears in sight, with the price expectation index falling again in the second quarter.
The People's Bank of China (PBOC) surveyed 20,000 bank depositors in 50 cities across the country, about 3,200 banks and over 5,000 companies for the surveys. BLOOMBERG
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