BEIJING – At the
opening of the annual session of China’s
parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), Premier Wen Jiabao announced
that the government’s target for annual economic growth in 2012
was 7.5%. With the global economy still struggling to recover, Wen’s
announcement of such a significant dip in China’s
growth rate naturally sparked widespread concern around the world.
Fixed-asset investment is the most important engine of China’s growth. As a developing country with annual per capita income of less than $5,000, there is still significant room for China to increase its capital stock. But the growth rate of investment is too high. The issue is not whether China needs more investment, but whether China’s absorption capacity can continue to accommodate the rapid investment growth of the past decade.
In this sense, the investment rate, which in China approaches 50% of GDP and is rising, can be regarded as a measure of the stress that fixed investment places on the economy. It is not entirely an exaggeration to say that the economy’s capacity for investment growth has reached its limit.
The recent high-speed rail debacle is a case in point. In 2003, China built its first high-speed-rail project. As a key component of the RMB4 trillion ($630 billion) stimulus package introduced during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, investment in high-speed-rail construction increased by leaps and bounds. By the end of 2010, China’s operational high-speed-rail network surpassed 8,000 kilometers, with an additional 17,000 kilometers under construction. By contrast, all Western countries combined took a half-century to build a total of 6,500 kilometers. Built in such haste, catastrophe was almost inevitable.
Investment growth that surpasses an economy’s absorption capacity will lead to a rapid deterioration in the efficiency of investment, which in turn will harm long-term growth prospects. Evidence of this in China today is all too prevalent. To reverse this trend, some respite in investment growth is not only necessary, but also inevitable in a profit-driven economy.
While China’s investment rate should be brought down to a sustainable level, an equally, if not more, important challenge is to adjust the structure of investment. For many years, the single most important category of investment in China has been real-estate development, which accounts for roughly 10% of GDP and a quarter of total investment. But resources need to be allocated to projects that build up human capital, provide public goods, and foster creativity and innovation. Adjusting the investment structure, however, will inevitably cause investment growth to decelerate, at least in the transitional period, thus leading to a slowdown in overall GDP growth.
International trade has played a pivotal role in China’s economic development over the past 30 years. However, the global market is no longer able to absorb China’s massive exports, not to mention the immediate impact of economic malaise in Europe and the United States on export demand. Moreover, rising labor costs and a stronger renminbi will also undermine China’s export sector, causing GDP growth to slow this year.
Few would argue against China’s need for slower but better growth. The problem is that if China wishes to lower the GDP growth rate to 7.5% in 2012, from 9.2% in 2011, without worsening the growth pattern by raising the high investment rate even further, the annual growth rate of investment must be equal to or less than 7.5%.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation suffices to show that, unless the government is prepared to tolerate a further increase in the investment rate, achieving a GDP growth target of 7.5% implies a significant fall in the growth rate of investment. To compensate for the negative impact on GDP growth, and with export growth constrained by weak global demand, consumption must rise even more sharply, which is hard to imagine. In other words, lowering the GDP growth rate to 7.5% without making China’s growth pattern even more irrational is an impossible mission.
So a more likely growth scenario for 2012 is that China’s growth will be lower than in 2011, but still significantly higher than 7.5%. Correspondingly, its investment-driven growth pattern will be strengthened further, though at a slowing pace. Otherwise, a policy-induced hard landing would be difficult to avoid.
Indeed, how to achieve a more moderate growth rate without causing a hard landing is one of the most severe challenges confronting the Chinese government. A hard landing is simply not an option.
With the country’s fiscal position still positive, it is difficult to image that the Chinese leadership would be so headstrong about “accelerating the transformation of the pattern of economic development” as to risk such an outcome. Even if it is, GDP-obsessed and debt-ridden local governments are likely to strive to achieve the highest possible growth rates for themselves, while paying lip service to Wen’s call for a slowdown. That is why, despite the official target, most Chinese economists still bet on a growth rate well above 8% for 2012.
Yu Yongding, President of the China Society of World Economics, was
formerly Director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of World
Economics and Politics. He has also served as a member of the Monetary Policy
Committee of the Peoples’ Bank of China, and as a member of the National
Advisory Committee of China’s 11th Five-Year Plan.
余永定: 中國：減速的糾結
北京—在一年一度的人大會議開幕時，溫家寶總理宣布，中國政府2012年的年經濟增長目標為7.5%。在全球經濟依然在掙扎著復蘇的時候，溫家寶宣布中國增長率的大幅下降自然而然地引起了全世界的廣泛關注。
但需要指出的一個要點是，溫家寶所表達的更多的是一種政策姿態，而不是在預測經濟表現。他解釋說，降低增長率目標是為了“引導各方面把工作著力點放到加快轉變經濟發展方式、切實提高經濟發展質量和效益上來。”
固定資產投資是中國增長的最重要引擎。中國是一個發展中國家，年人均收入不足5000美元，仍有重組的空間可用於資本存量的增加。但投資增長率顯得太高了。問題不在於中國是否需要更多的投資，而在於中國的吸收能力是否能像過去十年那樣適應快速的投資增長。
出於這樣的考慮，投資率——在中國，投資佔GDP的比重超過50%，而且還在不斷上升——可以作為固定投資對經濟的壓力的指標。說中國經濟的投資增長耐受力已經到達了極限並不是很夸張的說法。
最近的高鐵項目問題就是這一問題的寫照。2003年，中國上馬了第一個高鐵項目。作為2008—2009年全球金融危機時出台的4萬億人民幣刺激項目的關鍵部分，高鐵建設投資可謂一日千裡。到2010年底，中國運營高鐵網絡超過8000公裡，另有17000公裡在建。與此形成對照的是，西方國家花了半個世紀的時間才建造了6500公裡高鐵線路。如此匆忙上馬，災難在所難免。
超過一國吸收能力的投資增長會快速惡化投資的效益，進而危害長期增長前景。現今在中國出現的跡象一點都不令人奇怪。為了扭轉這一趨勢，適當放緩投資增長不僅必要，而且是利潤驅動的經濟所不可避免的過程。
中國的投資率必須下降到一個可持續水平，與此同時，另一個重要性有過之而無不及的挑戰是調整投資結構。多年來，房地產開發在中國的投資中獨佔鰲頭，大約可佔到GDP的10%和總投資的25%。但更多的資源應該被配置到建設人力資本、提供公共品和促進創造力和創新的項目中。但是，調整投資結構將不可避免地引起投資增長放緩，至少在過渡期內是如此，因而會拉低總體GDP的增長率。
過去30年來，國際貿易在中國的經濟發展中扮演著關鍵角色。但是，全球市場已經無法吸收中國龐大的出口了，何況歐洲和美國的經濟低迷立刻會對出口需求形成沖擊。此外，勞動成本的增加和人民幣升值也將不利於中國出口部門，造成今年GDP增速放緩。
毫無疑問，中國需要較慢但更好的增長。問題在於，如果中國希望將GDP增長率由2011年的9.2%放緩為2012年的7.5%，同時又不想通過進一步提高投資率來惡化增長方式，那麼年投資增長就必須不高於7.5%。
無需復雜的計算就可以得出，除非政府已做好了忍受投資率進一步攀升的准備，否則達到GDP增長7.5%的目標意味著投資增長率的大幅下降。為了補償由此產生的對GDP增長的不利沖擊，在出口增長仍受全球需求萎靡約束的情況下，消費必須出現迅速增加，而這一點很難實現。換句話說，降低GDP增長率至7.5%而又不讓中國增長模式更加非理性是一個不可能完成的任務。
因此，更可能的2012年增長劇本是經濟增長率低於2011年，但仍顯著高於7.5%。相應地，投資驅動的增長模式將被進一步強化，盡管速度有所放緩。否則就難以避免政策引發的硬著陸。
事實上，如何實現增長率放緩而不導致硬著陸是中國政府所面臨的最嚴峻的挑戰。硬著陸絕不是可選項。
中國的財政狀況依然堅挺，因此中國領導人不太可能不惜風險一根筋地“加速經濟發展模式轉型”。就算中央政府確實如此，迷信GDP又債務纏身的地方政府仍有可能勉力追求盡可能高的增長率，同時在口頭上鼎力支持溫家寶的減速呼聲。這就是為何大部分中國經濟學家在官方目標大幅下調的情況下仍預測2012年的增長率將遠高於8%。