[Keywords:] balance of payments; Foreign economy; Surplus; Lose balance
[China Library ClassificationNo.] F751.1[Document ID] b [DocumentNo.] 2095-3283 (2012) 07-0004-06.
About the author: Dong Liu (1972-), male, from Weifang, Shandong Province, is a researcher in the General Office of the Central Party School and holds a doctorate in economics. His research direction is virtual economy and real economy.
The balance of payments is a comprehensive reflection of a country's foreign economy and an important basis for formulating macroeconomic policies and development strategies. With the development of global economic integration, the economies of various countries are highly integrated and interdependent. The balance of payments of a country, especially a big country, not only has a great influence on the international economic trend, but also is impacted by changes in the external economic situation. Therefore, promoting and maintaining the basic balance of China's international payments is an important prerequisite for achieving foreign economic stability and sustainable development.
First of all, economic globalization directly affects China's balance of payments pattern.
Since 1990s, the accelerated development of economic globalization and the rapid growth of international trade and direct investment have provided unprecedented opportunities for China's economic development. China has also made full use of the opportunities brought by economic globalization, vigorously developed its foreign economy and expanded the fields of foreign trade and foreign direct investment. Driven by investment, consumption and net exports, China's economy has achieved sustained high growth for more than 20 years, and its economic strength has been significantly enhanced, making its position in the global economy more prominent and its role more obvious.
First of all, China seized the opportunity of economic globalization, undertook global industrial transfer, and gradually developed into a world processing trade power. As the most populous country in the world, China has a strong competitive advantage in labor costs. With the reform and opening-up, China has gradually become the main undertaking place of global processing trade.
Secondly, after China's accession to the WTO, the development of foreign economic relations and trade has entered a period of rapid growth. Trade and investment facilitation has promoted China's rapid integration into the international economic and trade system and formed an important part of the world industrial value chain.
In just ten years after China's entry into WTO, China has effectively promoted trade and investment facilitation through active economic system reform and management policy improvement, which are mainly reflected in: protecting and encouraging the development of private economy according to law, relaxing restrictions on private enterprises to carry out foreign trade; Local governments at all levels introduce foreign capital with super-national treatment in land, taxation and financing, and promote foreign trade with foreign capital; Reduce policy restrictions on international trade and investment, and simplify foreign exchange administrative examination and approval procedures. China's total foreign trade increased from US$ 474.3 billion in 2000 to US$ 3 trillion in 20 10, with an average annual growth rate of 20.2%, and its share in world trade increased from 3.7% in 2000 to 9.9% in 20 10, slightly lower than that of the United States (10.8%). During the same period, foreign direct investment increased by 1. 1 trillion US dollars, and foreign direct investment reached 220 billion US dollars. By 2065,438+00, China has become the second largest foreign capital utilization country in the world (see Figure 65,438+0).
With the rapid development of China's foreign economy and its active integration into the world economy, China has become a very important member of the international economic and trade system. In the whole value chain of development, design, manufacturing, distribution and sales service, China is mainly in the manufacturing link, becoming a "world factory" and an important part of the world industrial system. In 20 10, China's manufacturing capacity accounted for 19.8% of the world share, surpassing that of the United States, ranking first in the world. In terms of import and export, the dependence on foreign trade in 20 10 was 50.5%, which was1/percentage point higher than that in 2000. Among them, processing trade accounts for 46.9% of total exports (see Figure 2).
With the gradual becoming a manufacturing power, China's imports of energy and raw materials in production factors have also increased significantly, forming a dependence on external resource products. Take crude oil as an example. 1995 China's net export1760,000 tons, 1996 translated into a net import of 2.5 million tons. After that, the import volume increased year by year, with a net import of 59.68 million tons in 2000 and 240 million tons in 20 10. Another example is iron ore and copper ore. In 2000, China imported 69.99 million tons of iron ore, and copper ore 1, 8 1, 000 tons, and 20 10 increased to 620 million tons and 6.47 million tons respectively.
In the past twenty years, the road taken by China's foreign economy has a vital influence on the formation of domestic industrial structure. Under the background of backward technology and lack of funds, by introducing foreign capital and advanced technology and taking advantage of China's demographic dividend, the comparative advantages of labor-intensive industries and processing and manufacturing industries have been formed, which has accelerated the upgrading of old equipment in China, and also expanded the space for China to expand its global trade share through the processing industry chain with two ends outside. When it happens in a small economy, its impact on the world is negligible. When it happened in China, the second largest economy, its impact on the world could not be underestimated, and the impact of the global economy on China was inevitable.
Specifically, the external economic constraints and restrictions on China's economic development are increasing day by day, and the practical difficulties and challenges are unprecedented. International public opinion calls on China to take greater responsibility for the world economy, and the frictions and contradictions with major developed countries in interest rates, exchange rates, foreign trade policies, etc. have obviously increased. With the rise of domestic labor costs and the rise of other emerging market countries, the benefits of trade exports are getting less and less. The sharp rise in the prices of major raw materials forced China to pay more foreign exchange for imports. The problem of "ternary paradox" has become increasingly prominent, that is, how to coordinate the relationship between independent monetary policy, RMB exchange rate stability and capital account convertibility, and how to achieve different macro-management goals has become a dilemma.
Two. Challenges in Promoting the Basic Balance of International Payments in China
Macroeconomic policy objectives mainly include economic growth, full employment, price stability and international balance of payments. These four goals are internally consistent. Under the condition of open economy, domestic equilibrium and external equilibrium are closely related. If economic growth, employment and prices are unbalanced, it will inevitably be reflected in the balance of payments. If the balance of payments is unbalanced, it is impossible to make full use of the two markets and resources, and it is impossible to really expand employment and promote coordinated economic and social development.
(A) the root causes of China's international balance of payments imbalance
Generally speaking, the imbalance of international payments refers to the situation that a country's international payments continue to show a deficit, which leads to the country's inability to guarantee its international payment ability. For example, when a country's trade is in a deficit state for a long time and its capital account is in a net outflow state, such countries are prone to an international payment crisis, that is, they cannot repay money or borrow money to pay off debts after shopping. On the contrary, China's international balance of payments imbalance is mainly manifested in a long-term large surplus of trade and capital and a large inflow of capital.
China's long-term large balance of payments surplus is the direct result of foreign trade imbalance and also the embodiment of internal economic imbalance. The imbalance of international payments has become one of the prominent problems and deep-seated contradictions in China's economic operation, which is mainly affected by the long-term and structural factors of economic development at home and abroad.