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中国经济:速度并非一切 China’s economy: Speed isn’t everything


18/04/2013 |The Economist

令人失望的中国经济增长速度也许预示着一个更现代化的经济体。


多年来,中国经济一直因其重视速度轻视平衡而广受批评,经济发展迅猛向前但欠缺考虑。经济快速发展,渔村变为工业区,工业区又成了金融中心,但这样的发展同时也带来了负面影响,投资排挤消费,重工业打压服务业,好像制造产品比服务于人更加重要。
但是这周,中国经济受到的批评稍有不同:增长不够快。最新经济数据显示本年第一季度GDP增长7.7%,略低于先前季度,远低于预期速度。考虑信贷曾在1月和3月剧增增长动力究竟缘何减弱尚不清楚与此同时美国经济放缓,前景较为黯淡的IMF几大经济体也不容乐观,中国股市对此反应消极。
但是正如经济的快速的增长掩盖了潜在的压力,如今放缓的增长背后也有两股振奋人心的趋势,这对中国经济的未来影响重大。尽管消费比重仍然较低,但第一季度的GDP增长中发挥的作用已经超过投资。这意味着经济延续了2011年开始对投资导向型增长模式的扭转趋势。更值得注意的是,过去三个季度以来,服务业在GDP增长中的作用已经超过工业,过去一年已和制造业基本持平——自上世纪60年代以来这种情况首次出现
简而言之,中国正在现代化,变得更像一个西方经济体消费者和服务者是经济主力。这两种积极的趋势可以相互促进,因为服务业比工业更利于吸纳劳动力,它的增长将促进工资乃至家庭收入的增加。收入高了,消费自然就得到动力,消费又拉动服务业。正如经济学家所说的那样,在经济生活中,“结果成为原因,原因变成结果”。
部分经济结果是由政治因素造成的。2008年,政府通过确立更为严苛的劳动法提高了劳动者的议价能力,因而也提升了其购买力。政府通过允许货币升值,将经济重心引向国内,由出口领域转向即产即销的服务领域。同时还减轻服务业的税收负担,用较少的增值税代替了粗放的营业税。
放慢脚步会更好
如果中国经济增长减速过于剧烈,导致大规模失业的话,这样的结构性改善便无足轻重了。对于已经一败涂地的经济体来说,结构再平衡也只能是毫无意义的安慰。但是现在的减速尚未伤及就业市场。根据野村银行的报告,第一季度待业人群中人均职位空缺为1.1个单位,为2001年有纪录以来的最高值,城市新增就业岗位300万个。
劳动力市场的供不应求反映的是中国经济正在接近其极限。正如新任国家主席习近平所言,“超高速增长”如今已不切实际,也无可取之处。这届政府将规范影子银行,继续限制房地产投机行为,禁止政府铺张浪费,比如公务应酬中的豪吃豪饮。
随着中国经济日趋成熟,它的增长速度将会逐渐放慢。违反这一经济规律只可能导致通货膨胀、产能过剩和难以偿付的账单。总之,经济增长快并不意味着经济在成长。

The hidden consolation of disappointing Chinese growth is a more modern economy

FOR years, critics of China have complained that it prizes speed over balance. The economy’s expansion has been heedless as well as relentless, breakneck as well as headlong. Rapid development has turned fishing villages into factory towns and factory towns into financial hubs, but it has also taken a toll. Heavy investment has crowded out consumption, and heavy industry has muscled out services, as if making stuff mattered more than serving people.


This week, however, China faced a less familiar complaint: it is not growing fast enough. New figures showed the economy expanding by 7.7% in the year to the first quarter, marginally slower than the previous quarter’s pace and notably slower than expected. The loss of momentum was a puzzle, given the spectacular surge in credit in January and March (see article). The fact it came at the same time as a lull in the American economy (see article) and a relatively gloomy set of forecasts for most big economies from the IMF did not help the mood. China’s stockmarket reacted unhappily.

However, just as fast growth masked underlying strains, so China’s disappointing growth has obscured two encouraging trends that may matter hugely for China’s future. 

Consumption, although still low, made a bigger contribution than investment to China’s growth in the first quarter. That sustains a break with investment-led growth that dates back to 2011. Even more notable, services have trumped industry’s contribution to GDP in the past three quarters and have almost matched it over the past four—which has not happened since the 1960s.

In short China is modernising, becoming more like a Western economy, with consumers and services to the fore. And these two promising trends reinforce each other. Because services are more labour-intensive than industry, their growth boosts wages and household income. Fatter pay-packets then encourage consumption, and consumer spending, in turn, favours services. In economic life, as one economist has put it, “Result becomes cause and cause becomes result.”

Some of the results reflect political causes. By passing stronger labour laws in 2008, China’s government bolstered workers’ bargaining power and thus their consumer power. By allowing its exchange rate to appreciate, it has directed China’s energies inward, away from exports and towards services, which are often consumed at the point of production. The regime is also busy easing the fiscal burden on the sector, replacing a clumsy turnover tax with a lighter value-added tax.

Slower can be better

If China’s growth slows too sharply, throwing lots of people out of work, such structural improvements will count for little. Better balance is scant consolation to an economy on its knees. But the slowdown has not yet hurt employment. According to Nomura, a bank, the number of job vacancies per applicant in the first quarter was 1.1, the highest since records began in 2001. Urban employment grew by 3m.

This tightness in the labour market suggests that China’s economy is operating close to its limits. “Ultra high-speed growth” is no longer feasible, let alone desirable, as Xi Jinping, China’s new president, points out. Rather than chasing growth at any cost, his government has imposed regulations on shadow banking, persevered with curbs on property speculation, and clamped down on government extravagance, such as the schmoozing and boozing, kowtowing and Maotai-ing that accompanies so much official business.

As China’s economy matures, its pace will slow. Fighting this economic law will only invite inflation, excess and harder reckonings. Growing fast is a poor alternative to growing up.



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