While other countries are scratching their heads thinking about
how to accelerate their economic growth, China is burdened with a
diametrically opposite problem.
The country's gross domestic product (GDP) has grown by more
than 10 percent for four consecutive years, but its structural
problems are too serious to ignore.
"The Chinese economy has been driven mainly by investment and
exports," Hu Shaowei, a senior economist with the State Information
Center, says. Such a one-sided pattern of growth has created a
spate of problems, such as environmental degradation and weak
domestic consumption.
Wang Xiaolu, deputy director of Beijing-based National Economic
Research Institute, says, "Such a pattern is not sustainable in the
long run."
Excessive investment has brought down consumption and made the
economy increasingly dependent on fund inflow. Strong exports, on
the other hand, have led to a huge foreign exchange reserve, the
efficient use of which remains a challenge.
The Chinese government proposes to focus on quality growth,
instead of fast, unsustainable expansion to avoid drastic swings in
the economy.
In his Government Work Report presented to the Fifth Session of
the 10th National People's Congress (NPC) yesterday, Premier Wen
Jiabao expressed concern over expanding fixed-asset investments and
trade imbalance, urging that their acceleration be checked.
The government has set an economic growth target of 8 percent
for this year in order to reign in the economy. Despite being
non-binding, his statement is a sign of the central government's
determination to rebalance the economy, analysts said. "It reflects
a change in the government's attitude in that it focuses on
quality," Hu says. "Quality has replaced speed as the top
priority."
A big hurdle in improving the quality of economic growth is the
high growth of fixed-asset investments. China's fixed-asset
investment has been dynamic in recent years, rising 24 percent in
2006 over the previous year. The increase was 25.7 percent in 2005,
and 26.4 percent in 2004.
In the first half of 2006, the fixed-asset growth rose by a
whopping 29.8 percent in the entire country and a staggering 31.3
percent in the urban areas. And had the central government not
pulled the brakes, the already overheated economy would have ended
on a more scorching note last year.
Loose liquidity has fueled such growth, with financial
institutions extending 3.18 trillion yuan (US$413 billion) more in
loans last year. The monetary authorities raised the bank reserve
requirement ratio and the interest rate to deal with excess
liquidity, and the government brought large-scale investment
projects under control and raised the price of land earmarked for
industrial use in the second half of 2006.
The measures brought down the fixed-asset investment growth from
the second half of last year.
This year, however, fixed-asset investments are not expected to
slow down significantly, Hu says.
That's because "many existing investment projects will continue
this year", says Chen Xingdong, deputy managing director and chief
economist of BNP Paribas Peregrine Securities.
Lehman Brothers economists, too, don't see a sharp drop "given
the need to improve rural infrastructure and boost economic
development in the mid-western regions".
Also, the World Bank has forecast that investment will remain
relatively strong, even though it's quite a challenge to jazz up
rural domestic demand.
Chen Xingdong says the rate this year could be around 20
percent. "Investment will not see a fundamental change until after
2009." Hu adds that "short-term returns on investments will remain
high and the market mood for investment, strong This means
investment will not decelerate much".
On the foreign trade front, last year's huge surplus, of 177.5
billion yuan (US$23 billion), calls for caution and
counter-measures. The Ministry of Commerce has set the target of 10
percent annual foreign trade growth by 2010. But it was 24 percent
last year.
The World Bank said in a report last month that China's trade
imbalance was "unlikely to shrink in the near term".
Trade policy makers have vowed to shift focus from quantity to
quality in exports to meet the challenge. And analysts have said
the export rebate policy could be adjusted further after the rate
cut in September.
"The efforts to rebalance trade will, however, be a gradual
process," Hu says, with Chen suggesting that the country should
adjust its impetus-based export policies to gradually bring down
its export rise if it wants to change its growth pattern. To shift
the growth pattern from exports, people's livelihood and the
environment, not economic growth, should be atop the must-do
agenda.
As a sign of the shift, Premier Wen Jiabao emphasized the
importance of people's well being in his report yesterday. Chen
agreed totally with the premier, saying" "The central government
must shift the attention of local policy makers from economic
growth to people's livelihood and the environment."
(China Daily March 6, 2007)