On the basis of high growth for several years in a row, China's economic growth in the first quarter of this year was as high as 1 1. 1%, 0.7 percentage points faster than the same period last year. Will China's economy go from fast to overheated?
Zhang Liqun, a researcher in the Macro Department of the State Council Development Research Center, pointed out that the economic growth rate in the first quarter was indeed a bit high, but there were special reasons. High energy consumption, high pollution emissions and high growth of foreign trade export driven by resource-processed products are the main influencing factors. With the adjustment of the export policy of "two high-tech and one capital" products, this activity of grabbing exports will soon disappear. Compared with the first quarter, the growth rate of industrial added value in April has begun to fall. So the data of the first quarter is not enough to show that China's economy is overheated.
"In fact, China's economy has been hot since 2003, and it has not really cooled down for several years." Wang, director of the Economic Operation and Development Research Office of the Economic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, judged that the macro-control in recent years only suppressed the overheating of the economy. Not only that, the heat of China's economy this year is higher than that of 2006, even higher than that of 2004. This is because China's economy has just accelerated in 2004, which has a great recovery nature, and it faces the bottleneck of coal, electricity and oil transportation. There is a real risk of overheating this year.
Zhu Baoliang, deputy director of the Economic Forecasting Department of the State Information Center, further analyzed that China's GDP grew by more than 10% for four consecutive years, and the economic growth rate in the first quarter was as high as 1 1. 1%. It should be said that there are signs of excessive growth. But judging whether the economy is overheated depends on whether the GDP growth rate exceeds the potential growth level and whether prices continue to rise by more than 5%. Judging from the supporting conditions such as energy and resources, the potential growth rate of China's economy is 1 1.5%, and the current growth rate is very close. If the GDP growth rate exceeds 1 1.5%, the economy may overheat. Moreover, since the core inflation level in China is generally low, it is impossible to judge that the economy is overheated. In recent years, comprehensive measures have been taken to pre-adjust and fine-tune macro-control, and the economic growth rate has always remained below the potential economic growth rate, with no ups and downs.
Hot issue 2
At present, the pressure of excess liquidity of funds is further increased, which affects many aspects of the macro-economy. What is the reason behind it? How to effectively use working capital?
Zhang Liqun believes that we should pay attention to the problem that excess capital liquidity leads to the expansion of fixed assets investment, which in turn affects the stability of economic growth. At present, the contradiction between economic development and resources and environment is more acute. The speed of economic development has a great relationship with the pressure of resources and environment before energy conservation and emission reduction have achieved obvious results and the development model of environmental protection and energy conservation has not been formed. Therefore, if the investment in fixed assets is further accelerated at the current level, it will pose a certain threat to the stability of the whole economic growth.
Zhu Baoliang pointed out that in the first four months of this year, China's trade surplus further expanded, and its foreign exchange reserves increased substantially, which led to the rapid introduction of the base currency and further increased the pressure of excess liquidity of funds. A large amount of abundant funds have caused problems such as excessive credit supply, investment rebound, rising asset prices and increasing trade frictions, which have affected the sustained, stable and healthy development of China's economy.
"At present, the focus of macro-control is not to reduce excess liquidity, but to effectively use excess liquidity, mainly to readjust the flow direction of excess liquidity and make it adjust in a direction conducive to economic structure optimization." Wang's point of view is that the current surplus funds mainly flow into the real estate industry in developed regions, and the main task of current and future economic development in these regions should be the upgrading of industrial structure, which is also the region with the greatest ability to do well and play a leading role in industrial upgrading, but unfortunately, these regions rely too much on real estate development, which restricts industrial upgrading.
Experts believe that in order to effectively use the surplus funds, we must first make up our minds to adjust the development policy of real estate, prevent the increasing surplus funds from being highly concentrated in the real estate industry, and curb the excessive growth of real estate. The second step is to innovate the model and let excess funds flow into industries and social undertakings that urgently need industrial upgrading.
Hot issue 3
/kloc-From October to April, the consumer price index (CPI) of China increased by 2.2%, 2.7%, 3.3% and 3% respectively. The price increase in individual months exceeds the regulation target of 3% for the whole year. What will be the trend of the annual price level?
Zhang Liqun pointed out that the main driving factor for the price increase is the rapid rise of food prices, which rose by 6.7% in June and April, driving the price increase by 2.2 percentage points. The increase in food prices is caused by the increase in food prices since last year, and it is also related to the grain circulation field and grain processing policy. Due to the rapid development of China's grain processing capacity, a large amount of feed grain is consumed, which makes the price of meat, poultry and eggs in the downstream rise. However, there is no problem with the total grain supply in China, but the circulation system needs to be further improved, and the prices other than grain have not risen much, so CPI will not continue to rise.
Wang's right judgment is that there is not much inflationary pressure on China's economy at present. Recently, the price increase of pork has aroused widespread concern, but we can't oppose it when we see the price increase. The price increase of pork is good for farmers to increase their income, so we can't interfere excessively. In addition, under the background of relatively rapid technological progress and market globalization, supply is generally faster than demand, and the global economy is expanding at a low level. Apart from food, the core inflation rate of China's economy is actually low for a long time. China's grain harvest for three consecutive years, coal, electricity and oil transportation is not tight, which determines that the price increase this year will not be too big.
Hot issue 4
At present, housing prices in some cities are still rising too fast, and the people react strongly. What are the problems behind high housing prices? What is the focus of future housing market regulation?
Wang believes that one of the important reasons for China's rapid economic growth is the rapid growth of real estate investment. The rapid growth of real estate investment leads to excessive investment in downstream industries with high energy consumption and low technology, which in turn leads to excessive credit supply. In addition, the release of production capacity in some industries driven by real estate has made the domestic market oversupply, thus turning to exports, leading to further expansion of the trade surplus. In recent two years, the effect of real estate market regulation is not obvious, which has caused the phenomenon that the downstream industry regulation will rebound in about half a year.
Stabilizing housing prices is mainly to stabilize housing demand. Zhang Liqun suggested that in order to stabilize housing demand, the government should do several things: First, regulate speculative housing demand, such as restricting the purchase of second homes and levying property tax; The second is to ensure normal basic housing demand. At present, the main reason why people react strongly to the rise in housing prices is that the demand for basic housing cannot be guaranteed. Judging from the situation of all countries in the world, the basic housing demand is not met through the market, but is guaranteed by the government. With the rising housing prices, it is increasingly difficult for ordinary people to solve the housing problem, and it is urgent to further improve China's housing system.
Hot issue five
On May 18, the People's Bank of China announced that it would raise the deposit reserve ratio and benchmark interest rate, expand the fluctuation range of RMB against the US dollar in the inter-bank spot foreign exchange market, and play a "combination boxing" of regulation. Facing the new situation and new problems in macro-economy, how to choose the direction of macro-control in the future? How to balance strength?
Zhu Baoliang pointed out that in order to prevent the economy from turning from high-speed growth to overheating, the key at present is to prevent the imbalance of international payments from causing excessive growth of money and credit. We must adhere to a prudent and tight monetary policy and tighten monetary liquidity by raising the benchmark interest rate, raising the statutory deposit reserve ratio and open market operations. Through comprehensive measures such as appreciation of RMB effective exchange rate, adjustment of export tax rebate policy, and raising the price of resource products, the growth of currency can be controlled from the source of excessive trade surplus. At the same time, we will implement a prudent and loose fiscal policy, increase support for rural areas, education and social security, adjust the investment structure, and promote household consumption.
Macro-control is a means to fundamentally change the traditional mode of economic development. It needs the concerted efforts of the government, enterprises and social Qi Xin to accelerate the pace of economic restructuring and the transformation of growth mode, so that China's economy can make great strides on the track of "sound and fast".