The contribution of high value-added industries such as new information technology to China’s total economic inputs grew in February, mainly driven by an increase in labor inputs from the previous month, a Caixin index showed.
The Mastercard Caixin BBD New Economy Index (NEI) came in at 31.1 last month, indicating that new economy industries accounted for 31.1% of China’s overall economic input activities. The reading was up from 29.5 in the previous month.
The NEI, which was released Wednesday, aims to track the size of 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 increase in last month’s NEI was mainly due to growth in the subindex for labor inputs. The subindex, which has a 40% weighting, rose 3.7 points month-on-month to 26.3 in February.
The technology input subindex, which has a 25% weighting, increased by 2.2 points month-on-month to 28.7 in February. 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 subindex for capital inputs, which has a weighting of 35%, edged down 0.9 points from the previous month to 38.5 in February.
Launched in March 2016, the NEI defines a new economy industry as one that is human capital- and technology-intensive but asset-light, experiences sustainable and rapid growth, and is a strategic new industry encouraged by the government.
Of the 10 tracked industries, the new information technology industry remained the largest contributor in February, making up 9.2 percentage points of the NEI reading.
The average monthly entry-level salary in the 10 industries, based on data compiled from online career and recruitment websites, grew to 13,254 yuan ($2,099) in February, 12 yuan higher than the previous month.
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)
Read more about Caixin’s economic indexes.
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