The contribution of high value-added industries such as advanced equipment manufacturing to China’s total economic inputs declined in August, a Caixin index showed in early September.
The Mastercard Caixin BBD New Economy Index (NEI) came in at 30.4 in August, indicating that new economy industries accounted for 30.4% of China’s overall economic input activities. The reading was down from 31.5 the previous month.
The NEI aims to track the size of, and changes in, China’s nascent industries by using big data. It measures labor, capital and technology inputs in 10 emerging industries relative to those used by all industries.
The subindex for labor inputs, which has a weighting of 40%, fell to 25.2 in August from 25.4 the previous month.
The capital input subindex, which has a 35% weighting, declined to 38.5 in August from 41.2 in the month before.
The technology input subindex, which has a 25% weighting, inched up to 27.5 last month. This gauge measures the number of research personnel recruited by the tracked industries, and the number of inventions they have created and patents they have obtained.
The NEI, launched in March 2016, defines a new economy industry as one that is human capital- and technology-intensive but asset-light, experiences sustainable and rapid growth, and is one of the strategic new industries encouraged by the government.
Of the 10 tracked industries, the new information technology industry was the largest contributor in August, making up 11.4 percentage points of the NEI reading.
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 editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)
Read more about Caixin’s economic indexes.
