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The continued economic growth in China in the coming decades will
create enormous opportunities for other countries, especially those
in Asia, instead of threat to them, as China will provide a still
broader market for them and create the conditions for them to
upgrade their industrial structures, said prominent Chinese
economist Lin Yifu.
Lin, who is in Beijing to attend the first session of the 10th
National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC), which opened Monday, told Xinhua that
facts over the past years have proved that China's economic growth
has stimulated the growth of the world economy as a whole and such
a rapid growth will continue into decades to come.
In
an exclusive interview with Xinhua, the prominent economist
gave the lie to such fallacies as "China poses threat to other
countries" and "China's economy is about to collapse." He also
tried to ease the worries that the increased export of products
made by cheap labor would squeeze the market shares of other
countries.
China's labor is cheap indeed, said Lin, but its labor productivity
is low, too. The wage level of China is barely 1/50 that of the
United States and Japan while its mean labor productivity is only
1/25 that of the United States and 1/26 that of Japan. This means
that the wage cost required for creating one dollar of value in the
United States is only 1/3 higher than in China.
Then, China's export enterprises are chiefly doing processing, Lin
continued. The increase in export will require corresponding amount
of imports, that is, for every US$100 of export increased, it
requires US$50-70 worth of imports. Besides, Sino-foreign joint
ventures play a big part in China's export. "Such pattern of export
and import is, no doubt, beneficial to other countries," Lin Yifu
stressed.
The big increase in foreign direct investment in 2002 does not mean
the diversion into China of the foreign direct investment bound to
other Asian countries, said Lin. Instead, that is the result of the
big increase in the movement of private capital in the world. In
fact, the proportion of the influx of foreign direct investment
into China in the total foreign direct investment that has flowed
into Asia as a whole has remained stable ever since 1993, the
economist said.
Besides, the capital that flows into China mainly comes from Hong
Kong and Taiwan while the capital that flows into the ASEAN
countries mainly comes from the United States and Japan, Lin noted,
adding that this is still what it is today.
"All these facts show that China's development has not been
realized by snatching away foreign direct investment from the hands
of other countries," economist Lin Yifu stressed.
(Xinhua News Agency March 4, 2003)
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