From Mao to the mall

[2008.02.14]Economics focus From Mao to the mall消费时代来临
Economicsfocus
FromMao to the mall
消费时代来临
Feb 14th 2008
From TheEconomist print edition
Amid all the global gloom, the good news isthat China is turning into a nation of spenders, as well assellers。虽然全球经济陷入低潮，但好兆头是中国正从出口大国步入消费大国。
THE past year has seen alively debate among economists about China‘s rapid economicgrowth. Some, such as Brad Setser from the Council on ForeignRelations, believe that exports have been the main generator;others, like UBS‘s Jonathan Anderson and TheEconomist, think that domestic demand—spending on roads andrailways, cars and clothes, and the like—has been the drivingforce. Just now, a lot turns on this argument: both how badlyChina‘s economy could be hurt by an American recession and alsothe extent to which Chinese spending could help to prop up the restof the world economy. Some new figures suggest Chinese demand isrising strongly enough to help offset the increasing weakness inChina‘s export markets. That could be good news for the worldat large.
去年经济学家曾就中国经济的快速增长进行了一场激烈的讨论。以美国外交关系委员会国际事务研究员布拉德赛斯特为首的经济学家认为出口是拉动增长的主要因素；而瑞银亚洲区首席经济学家乔纳森安德森等一些经济学家及本刊认为为满足国内需求修建公路、铁路，生产汽车、服装等产品一直是促进发展的动力所在。现在争论的新焦点是：美国经济衰退对中国经济的打击会有多大？中国消费市场能支撑起世界经济走多远？一些新的数据显示中国内需增长强劲，足以抵消出口市场不断萎靡的影响。这对全球市场来说会是个好兆头。
It is certainly true thatChina‘s current-account surplus rose to a record 10% of its GDPlast year, which means that it produced a lot more than it consumedand so relied on foreigners to buy the excess. But it is the changein a country‘s trade surplus, not its absolute size, whichmatters for GDP growth. The increase in net exports (exports minusimports) has never been the main source of China‘s growth. Itcontributed two to three percentage points to annual GDP growthbetween 2005 and 2007, whereas domestic demand (consumption andinvestment) added eight to nine percentage points. But the latestfigures show that exports have become even less important as adriver of growth. The World Bank‘s latest China QuarterlyUpdate suggests that net exports contributed only 0.4percentage points to GDP growth in the year to the fourth quarterof 2007 (see left-hand chart). Overall GDP growth slowed onlymodestly (to 11.2%) because of faster growth in domestic demand,which contributed an impressive 10.8 percentagepoints.
中国的经常项目贸易盈余去年又创历史新高，占国内生产总值的10%，这就意味着中国的生产量大大超过消费量，需要将过剩的生产产品出口。影响一个国家GDP增长的不是看有多大的贸易盈余，而是要看该国的贸易盈余的变化。中国的净出口（即出口量减去进口量）增长长期以来并不没有成为带动经济增长的主要因素。2005至2007年GDP年增长中仅有2%-3%来自于净出口，而国内需求（消费与投资）占8%-9%。最近的数据更是表明出口拉动增长的作用微乎其微。世界银行最新公布的中国季度报告显示2007年第四季度中国净出口仅为全年GDP创造0.4%的增长。在快速上扬的国内需求带动下，2007年全年增长速度依然强劲，达到11.2%，其中10.8%的可观增长来自于国内需求拉动。

The significance of all thisis that although China‘s headline GDP growth is widely tippedto slow to 9-10% in 2008, if a bigger chunk of this growth comesfrom domestic consumption and investment, then in absolute dollarterms China could well contribute more to global demand this yearthan in 2007.
这些都表明尽管各种迹象暗示中国广义国民生产总值GDP增长速度会在08年稍有回落，达到9-19%，但这一增长将更多依赖于国内消费与投资，以美元计算中国08年对国际市场的贡献将会比07年更大。
Dragonomics, a Beijing-basedeconomics-research firm, forecasts that the contribution of netexports to GDP growth will actually fall to zero during 2008, butthis will be partly offset by strong growth in investment andconsumption. After growing by an average of $80 billion during eachof the past three years, China‘s trade surplus is likely toremain more or less flat this year. Export growth fell from 28% inthe year to the first quarter of 2007 to 22% by the fourth quarterbecause of weaker American demand and the impact of a strongeryuan.
北京一家经济研究公司龙洲经讯预测2008年净出口对GDP增长的贡献将会降至零，取而代之的是投资和消费带来的强劲增长。在即平均增长连续三年达到800亿美元之后，今年贸易顺差不会有太大增长。由于美国消费需求缩小及人民币升值影响，中国出口增长已由07年第一季度的28%下降到第四季度的22%。
Meanwhile import growth surgedfrom 18% to 26% on the back of strong industrial and consumerdemand. In other words, Chinese imports are now growing faster thanexports. China‘s trade surplus widened by only 12% (in dollarterms) over the year to the fourth quarter, compared with anincrease of almost 90% in the first half of last year. This waspartly due to higher oil prices that increased the value ofimports, but even in inflation-adjusted volume terms the surplusstopped growing in the latter part of lastyear.
同时以强劲的工业及消费需求为支撑，进口增长由18%上升到26%。换句话说，中国的进口市场比出口市场享有更快的发展速度。中国到07年第四季度总计全年贸易顺差在绝对美元币值条件下只增长了12%，而按07上半年计算，贸易顺差增长近九成之高。这一方面是由于油价上涨使得进口货币价格，即便除去通胀因素条件下，后半年盈余也没什么增长。
Time to open theirwallets
是该让人们花钱的时候了
Not only did more ofChina‘s growth come from domestic demand late last year, butthere were also signs of a “rebalancing” of the economy frominvestment towards consumption. Using figures from China‘sNational Bureau of Statistics, Mark Williams, an economist atCapital Economics, a London-based research firm, calculates that in2007 consumption accounted for a bigger slice of GDP growth thaninvestment for the first time in seven years. Government restraintson bank lending caused investment growth to slow slightly, whereasconsumer spending picked up. The often-quoted monthly figures onfixed-asset investment still show annual growth of over 20%, butthese figures are misleading. Measured on thesame national-accounts basis as GDP, to exclude property and land sales, realinvestment rose by a more modest 11% in the year to the fourthquarter, less than the growth in realconsumption.
去年下半年国内需求带动GDP大部分的增长，不仅仅如此，有迹象表明中国政府正在努力促使经济增长由投资拉动转向消费拉动。伦敦研究机构CapitalEconomics 经济学家MarkWilliams 根据中国国家统计局给出的数据预计2007年由消费带动的GDP增长份额将在7年来首次超过投资带动的份额。政府采取限制银行借贷的政策，使投资增长速度略微放慢，而消费支出却一路上扬。经常引用的固定资产投资每月数据显示投资年度增长仍超过20%，但这一统计会导致误解。若基于GDP核算帐户进行计量,除去地产与土地买卖，实际投资截至至第四季度仅上涨１１％，比实际消费增长要慢。
China‘s consumer-spendingdata are notoriously murky. The annual rate of growth in retailsales has surged from 13% in early 2006 to 20% in December of lastyear (see right-hand chart). Some sceptics argue that this increaseis mainly due to a rise in inflation. However, the consumer-price index is not theappropriate deflator because it gives a much higher weight to food(the main source of the recent surge in inflation) than the shareof food in total retail sales. Frank Gong, aneconomist at JPMorgan, argues that using a more appropriatedeflator, real spending has clearly accelerated, especially onhousehold goods. One important stimulus is that last year realurban disposable income per head rose faster than GDP for the firsttime in five years. This should help to keep consumption growingrapidly in 2008.
中国的居民消费支出数据统计有出入，这人所共知。零售行业年增长由2006年年初13%上涨到去年12月的20%（见右图）。有人怀疑这一增长主要是因为通货膨胀率的提高。但是，用消费物价指数作为平减指数并不合适，因为该指数中食品所占权重高于食品消费在商品零售总额中的比例，而食品是近期通胀猛增的主要因素。摩根大通银行(JPMorganChase)经济学家龚福朗(FrankGong)认为用实际开销来衡量更为恰当，并且实际开销在明显加大，特别是日用品开销的加大。去年城市居民人均可支配收入增长速度五年来首次高于GDP的增长，这应是一个重要的刺激因素。这将有助于08年消费继续保持快速增长。
A growth rate in Chinadriven more by consumption than by exports and investment isexactly what the American government has been demanding for severalyears. Indeed, it might be hoped that if China‘s trade surplusstops expanding and consumer demand plays a bigger role in growth,international trade tensions should subside. The snag is that evenif net exports were no longer contributing to China‘s growth,its trade surpluses with America and Europe would continue to loomembarrassingly large. And, says Mr Williams, as Chinese exportersmove into higher-value products, they will become more of a threatto Western producers.
中国增长速度多靠消费、少靠出口和投资，这正是多年来美国政府一直想要的局面。如果中国贸易顺差不再继续扩大，增长更多依靠国内需求支撑，那么国际贸易紧张局面则有望得以缓解。而现在的麻烦是即使中国不再靠净出口拉动增长，中国与美国及欧洲之间的贸易顺差依然大的令人发憷。威廉姆斯说随着中国开始出口高价值产品，西方生产者会面临更大的威胁。
In 2008 China will probablysuffer its first slowdown in growth for seven years. But strongdomestic demand should mean that an American recession would notbring the Chinese economy to a screeching halt. Indeed, to theextent that the economy was starting to overheat, a slowdown willbe welcomed by Chinese policymakers. And if almost all of theslowdown comes from net exports, while domestic spending remainsrobust, then the whole world can cheer, too.
2008年中国增长速度有可能会遭受7年来第一次回落。但强劲国内需求的存在意味着中国经济不会因美国经济衰退而踩急刹车。事实上，考虑到经济正偏向过热化发展，中国政府可能会很乐意看到增长有所减速。如果增长减速完全是由净出口减少所致，同时国内需求继续保持增长，那么全世界都会为之欢欣雀跃。