Shrinking Capital Investment Drags Down Caixin New Economy Index

The contribution of high value-added industries such as biotech to China’s total economic inputs contracted in April from the previous month due chiefly to a drop in capital inputs, a Caixin index showed.

The Mastercard Caixin BBD New Economy Index (NEI) came in at 28.8 in April, indicating that new economy industries accounted for 28.8% of China’s overall economic input activities. The reading was down from 30.6 in March.

The NEI uses big data to track the size of China’s nascent industries. It measures labor, capital and technology inputs in 10 emerging industries relative to those used in all industries.

The drop in the April reading was mainly caused by a decline in the capital input subindex. The subindex, which has a 35% weighting, sank 3.8 points from the previous month to 35.9 in April.

Meanwhile, the subindex for labor inputs, which has a weighting of 40%, fell 1.1 points to 22.8 last month. The subindex measures employee income and the number of positions in the new economy industries.

The technology input subindex, which has a 25% weighting, dipped 0.2 points to 28.3. It gauges the number of research personnel recruited by the tracked industries, the number of inventions they have created and the number of patents they have obtained.

Launched in March 2016, the NEI defines a new economy industry as one that is technology- and human capital-intensive, but asset-light, experiences sustainable and rapid growth, and is strategically encouraged by the government.

Of the 10 tracked industries, new information technology remained the largest contributor in April, contributing 8.1 percentage points to the NEI reading. The energy conservation and environmental protection industry ranked second, contributing 5.6 percentage points.

The average monthly entry-level salary in the 10 industries was 13,768 yuan ($2,082) in April, 49.7 yuan higher than the previous month, data compiled from online career and recruitment websites show.

The monthly NEI reports are written by Caixin Data Technology Co. Ltd. and Chinese big-data research firm BBD, in collaboration with the National School of Development at Peking University.

Contact reporter Tang Ziyi (ziyitang@caixin.com) and editor Lin Jinbing (jinbinglin@caixin.com)

Read more about Caixin’s economic indexes.

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