The contribution of high value-added industries such as biotech to China’s total economic inputs fell in December due mainly to a decline in technology investment, a Caixin index showed Sunday.
The Mastercard Caixin BBD New Economy Index (NEI) came in at 28.1 last month, indicating that new economy industries accounted for 28.1% of China’s overall economic input activities. The reading dropped from 29.6 in November.
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 index was led by a decline in the subindex for technology inputs. The subindex, which has a 25% weighting, fell 2.7 points month-on-month to 26.3.
The labor input subindex, which has a 40% weighting, dropped 1.8 points month-on-month to 23.5 in December.
The subindex for capital inputs, which has a weighting of 35%, fell 0.5 points to 34.5 in December.
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, the new information technology industry remained the largest contributor in December, making up 7.3 percentage points of the NEI reading, down from 11.8 percentage points the previous month. The contribution of the advanced-equipment manufacturing industry ranked second with 5.8 percentage points.
The average monthly entry-level salary in the 10 industries, based on data compiled from online career and recruitment websites, was 13,125 yuan ($2,061) in December, 12 yuan higher than the previous month.
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 Bertrand Teo (bertrandteo@caixin.com)
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