The National Information Center recently released a series of high-frequency indicators, sending a signal of a positive economic recovery.

Since the beginning of the year, infrastructure investment has shown positive changes in "adequate funding guarantees and accelerated project implementation".

Excavators are the "standard configuration" of infrastructure construction and are the weather vane for observing changes in economic data such as fixed asset investment. From January to February this year, the national domestic sales of excavators increased by 51.4% year-on-year, reflecting the acceleration of construction in farmland water conservancy, forestry, transportation, municipal engineering, mining and other fields. At the same time, in the first two months, the national excavator index was 37.38%, an increase of 2.91% year-on-year, and the progress of infrastructure project construction accelerated. Among them, the busiest is the central region, with the operating rate increasing by 6.02% year-on-year.

Ear February, the lifting equipment performed very well, with an operating rate of 56.63%, far exceeding other major equipment. Lifting equipment is often used in the installation of large-scale equipment, structural lifting and other links.

Tree Root Internet Excavator Index Expert Shen Chunfeng: Its high start-up rate indicates that more infrastructure projects enter the late stage of construction in February. This is due to the continued development of major infrastructure projects in many places at the beginning of 2025, and strong investment in railways, highways, energy and other fields.

In February, the busiest provinces that started construction were Anhui, Hubei, Henan, Zhejiang, etc. Data shows that although February is during the Spring Festival holiday, nearly half of the equipment in these provinces still work overtime, and the infrastructure is in a busy situation.

The construction of the project is speeding up, and at the same time, the demand for building materials is also growing rapidly. Data from the National Information Center shows that apparent consumption of steels such as rebar and wire increased by 41.5% in late February compared with early February.

In addition, the winning amount of national project investment monitored by the National Information Center increased by 9.2% year-on-year from January to February, and the popularity of project winnings maintained a rapid growth.

Consumption shows vitality, and hot spots in many fields are frequently appeared

Since this year, the combination of consumption policies has effectively leveraged the huge potential of domestic demand, and hot spots in many fields are frequently released, showing a vigorous and upward development trend.

The offline consumption popularity index compiled by the National Information Center shows that the year-on-year increase of 13.6% from January to February, an increase of 7.2 percentage points from December last year, and the offline consumption popularity continues to rise. Especially this year, the old-for-new policy has expanded the scope of subsidies, and the increase in home appliances from "8+N" to "12+N" has become the focus of consumers' attention. At a home appliance store in Beijing, the reporter saw that while the store actively promoted the national subsidy policy, it also carried out service measures such as replacement of small home appliance products within one year's fault package, and 100-day free trial of new products, further stimulating consumption enthusiasm.

Data from the Ministry of Commerce shows that as of March 5, more than 9.4 million consumers have purchased more than 12 million units of 12 major household appliances for new products, and more than 34 million consumers have applied for new subsidies for purchases of more than 42 million mobile phones and other digital products.

Commodity consumption is booming, and the growth rate of service consumption is rebounding. The National Information Center's popularity index for life service consumption constructed by the e-commerce platform increased by 20.1% year-on-year from January to February. Among them, the popularity of leisure, entertainment, catering and tourism increased by 79.1%, 15.4% and 5.9% year-on-year respectively.

Wei Ying, Deputy Director of the Big Data Development Department of the National Information Center of the National Development and Reform Commission: Since the beginning of this year, the consumer market has seen frequent highlights, showing strong vitality and potential, providing strong support for economic growth. The fundamental role of consumption in economic growth is becoming increasingly prominent. In the future, with the implementation of more consumption-promoting policies and the sustainable development of new consumption, consumption will continue to inject strong momentum into the economic recovery and improvement.