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Japan's current economic situation and growth prospects
Japan is facing the most serious aging problem and financial problem in the world. Japan's population over 65 accounts for 26.7% of the total population, the highest in the world. It is estimated that by 2060, the number of Japanese working-age population (15-64 years old) will be reduced by half from the peak of 1995 to 44180,000. The unfavorable population trend is the direct cause of Japan's economic growth in the past two decades, and it is also the biggest obstacle to Japan's economic growth in the future.
The population problem will also aggravate Japan's financial difficulties. At present, the ratio of Japanese national debt to GDP is as high as 250%, which is much higher than the internationally recognized warning line of 90%, and even exceeds European countries such as Greece and Italy, which are deeply mired in debt crisis. Although Japanese government bonds are mostly held by domestic creditors and have high stability, financial unsustainability is an unavoidable problem.
Trees can't grow to the sky, and the ratio of debt to GDP can't rise indefinitely. 40% of Japanese pensions are borne by the government. With the aggravation of aging, fiscal revenue will become increasingly difficult to support the increase of social security burden, and government debt and deficit will further rise, posing a huge challenge to fiscal sustainability. Many Japanese residents are also aware that there may be a gap in pensions in the future, so they try to reduce consumption and increase preventive savings, thus reducing the current total demand, which constitutes deflationary pressure.
Weak demand and sluggish corporate investment are the main sticking points of Japan's economy. The effect of policy stimulus is limited and the growth prospect is not optimistic. Japan's deflation in recent 20 years has had a far-reaching impact on the behavior of residents and enterprises. In the deflationary environment, residents delay consumption, and weak consumption makes enterprises reduce their investment in China and prefer overseas investment.
Faced with this dilemma, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has implemented a series of economic stimulus policies including ultra-loose monetary policy, expansionary fiscal policy and structural reform since he took office at the end of 20 12. Among them, the expansionary fiscal policy includes expanding the fiscal budget and reducing taxes for enterprises. Although structural reform has progressed slowly, progress has also been made in agriculture, electricity and medical care. Ultra-loose monetary policy includes large-scale asset purchase (QQE) and negative interest rate policy, both of which depress the long-term loan interest rate and bond yield and reduce the financing cost of enterprises.
However, in general, Japanese companies are not short of funds. On the contrary, they hold a lot of cash, and half of listed companies don't even have any loans. Although the negative interest rate policy has improved the willingness of banks to provide credit, it is difficult to drive the investment and loan demand of enterprises to rebound, so the effect is relatively limited. Although the economy showed signs of improvement in the short term after the implementation of Abenomics, the unemployment rate gradually decreased, and house prices stopped falling and rebounded, in the past year, Japan's economy showed a downward trend, and the inflation rate once again fell into a negative value, which deepened the market's concern about Japan's growth prospects. Japanese officials predict that the economic growth rate will be between 0- 0.5% for a long time, and it is difficult to achieve the inflation target of 2%. Low growth and low inflation will be the normal state in the future.
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Enlightenment of Japanese Experience on China's Economic Problems
First, the problem of non-performing loans of banks should be dealt with as soon as possible, and the government should provide financial support to banks to alleviate the pressure on the economy brought by deleveraging of banks and enterprises. Corporate debt and bank non-performing loans are important hidden dangers in China's current economic operation. Japan has profound experience and lessons in dealing with bad debts of zombie enterprises and banks. Japan once faced the most serious corporate debt problem in the world. After the bursting of the bubble economy in the late 1990s, Japan's private sector debt accounted for more than 220% of GDP, and the risk of corporate default rose rapidly.
Under the pressure of supervision, banks usually deliberately conceal the rate of non-performing loans, delay the exposure of risks by extending loans and "borrowing new ones to repay old ones" to improve the economy and enable enterprises to repay loans. Due to the delay, the government missed the opportunity to solve the problem at a lower cost in the early stage. In 200 1 year, the non-performing loan ratio of Japanese banks was as high as 8.4%, which eventually consumed a lot of banks' own capital to write off bad debts, resulting in the capital adequacy ratio of Japanese commercial banks falling to the bottom of 3.3% in 2002, and the credit creation of banks shrank seriously. This is also an important reason for Japan's economic contraction and deflation after 2000.
There are many similarities between China and Japan in the 1990s. Scholars estimate that the proportion of corporate debt in GDP in China is between 130%- 160%, which is a very high level in the world and is still rising. On the one hand, it reflects the low investment efficiency of enterprises, and a large number of zombie enterprises borrow new debts to repay old debts. On the other hand, it means that the risk of default is rising, and even the systemic risk is hidden.
Banks and local governments have no incentive to eliminate zombie enterprises, because the withdrawal of zombie enterprises will expose the non-performing loans of banks, and local governments can't solve the problem of resettlement of laid-off workers, so the problems of corporate debt and non-performing loans of banks continue to deteriorate. Drawing lessons from Japan, our government needs to face up to the problem of non-performing assets of banks as soon as possible and make a clear division of non-performing claims. If the banking system itself is difficult to digest non-performing assets, the government should provide sufficient financial support in time to avoid credit contraction caused by serious damage to the bank's balance sheet. The Japanese government uses fiscal revenue accounting for-0/5% of GDP to solve the problem of non-performing loans of banks, and we need to make similar preparations.
Second, the population problem will be an important factor restricting the medium and long-term economic growth in China, so we must be alert to the financial problems brought about by demographic changes. The proportion of China's labor force population in the total population shows an accelerated downward trend. In 20 12, the absolute value of China's labor force population began to decline, and the United Nations predicted that it would continue to decline in the next 10, while the dependency ratio began to rise after bottoming out in 20 13. Scholars predict that by the end of this century, the total population of China will drop from the current 654.38+0.3 billion to 654.38+0 billion. Adverse demographic trends will also have a profound impact on China's long-term financial situation. Although the proportion of government debt to GDP in China is not high at present, the aging population means that tax revenue will be increasingly difficult to support the growing social security expenditure, which is a long-term trend.
The rapid disappearance of the demographic dividend is closely related to the population policy. In the 1950s, Japan also implemented the policy of "fewer children and better children" to curb the high fertility rate. By the mid-1970s, the fertility rate began to fall below the replacement level. Japan changed its policy and began to encourage fertility, but the effect was minimal. At the end of 1990s, Japan's working-age population began to shrink, which directly dragged down demand and investment, and was an important reason for Japan's economic slowdown and deflation after 1990s.
According to the experience of developed countries, once the fertility rate tends to decline, it is difficult to recover. Many countries have increased their labor force by increasing the labor participation rate and opening up immigration policies. China's labor participation rate (7 1%) is already at a high level in the world, so it is more necessary to increase the fertility rate to alleviate the problem of labor reduction. In a word, only by fully liberalizing the population policy and introducing policies to support and encourage fertility can the pressure brought by China's population decline be alleviated and the Japanese-style growth stagnation and deflation be avoided.
Third, knowledge and technological innovation are the key to enhance long-term potential economic growth, and a financial system that adapts to the development of modern technology must be established to support entrepreneurial and innovative activities. In addition to population growth, improving the long-term potential economic growth level mainly depends on technological progress and productivity improvement. In the past, Japan mainly relied on large enterprises to promote technological innovation within enterprises, and young people with higher education preferred to work in large enterprises. However, small and medium-sized enterprises are the pillar of a country's employment creation and GDP, and start-ups are the source of technological revolution and scientific and technological development. With the support of the Japanese government for scientific and technological innovation, more and more Japanese college students have started their own businesses, and the innovation and vitality of small and medium-sized enterprises have also improved.
In China, the traditional economic development model dominated by large state-owned enterprises is also facing bottlenecks, and problems such as declining market vitality and declining enterprise productivity are beginning to stand out. The government encourages entrepreneurship and innovation to overcome the difficulties in economic development. In this process, different financial systems have a profound impact on the development of the real economy. Only by establishing a financial system that adapts to the development of modern science and technology can we effectively support the innovative development of small and medium-sized enterprises, especially entrepreneurial enterprises.
In China and Japan, banks are the main financial systems, while direct financing plays a secondary role. The situation in the United States is just the opposite, with direct financing accounting for 3/4 and indirect financing accounting for only 1/4. Manufacturing enterprises usually hold fixed assets such as land, machinery and equipment, which can be used as collateral to obtain bank loans, while innovative enterprises and small and micro enterprises usually lack sufficient collateral, especially in the initial stage of their business, it is difficult to obtain financing from financial intermediaries.
The indirect financing system led by banks has adapted to the rapid development of countries with manufacturing as the core, such as Japan, China and Germany. The financial system in the United States, which is mainly based on direct financing and highly developed equity financing, is more conducive to cultivating innovative enterprises, which is also the basis for Silicon Valley's technology enterprises to walk in the forefront of the world.
Therefore, to support the development of emerging enterprises and start-ups needs to establish a financial system that adapts to the development of modern technology to provide financing channels. The establishment of the New Third Board system has obviously promoted the innovation of enterprises in China, but the institutional defects in the capital market still restrict the listing of potential start-ups and the withdrawal of venture capital, so financial supervision and institutional reform are imperative.