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Judging from the troika, in 2020, exports, real estate investment and infrastructure investment performed relatively well, while consumption and manufacturing investment performed relatively generally, and the pattern of economic recovery was unbalanced. The economic growth of 202 1 may be more balanced, but the level will not be too high. 202 1 The operation of monetary policy should be more selective and cautious, so as to avoid the de facto "sharp turn" caused by excessive tightening of monetary policy.
The writer is Zhang Ming, academic member of Pangu Think Tank, deputy director of Institute of Finance of China Academy of Social Sciences and deputy director of National Finance and Development Laboratory. The article comes from FT Chinese website.
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Recently, the Bureau of Statistics released the macroeconomic data of China in the fourth quarter of 2020. In the fourth quarter of 2020, China's GDP growth rate reached 6.5%, and in 2020, China's GDP growth rate reached 2.3%, both exceeding market expectations. China's GDP exceeds 100 trillion yuan, which is equivalent to about 14.7 trillion US dollars, accounting for 17% of the world economy. In the context of the global pneumonia epidemic in COVID-19 in 2020, China became the only major economy with a positive GDP growth rate. It is not easy to achieve this result.
Judging from the troika, the economic growth of China in 2020 has a strong unbalanced feature.
In 2020, the total retail sales of social consumer goods will show a negative growth of 3.9%. Judging from the year-on-year growth rate of the month, the year-on-year growth rate of the total retail sales of social consumer goods in 2020 and February showed a negative growth of 20.5%. Although it continued to rebound, it did not turn from negative to positive until August 2020. The recovery of consumption growth obviously lags behind investment and net export, mainly because the COVID-19 epidemic has caused obvious impact on small and medium-sized enterprises and low-income families in the service industry, but it still takes time for them to recover. In 2020, China's per capita real disposable income growth rate will reach 2. 1%, slightly lower than GDP growth rate. Among them, the growth rate of per capita real disposable income of urban residents is only 1.2%. The recovery of consumption growth will remain moderate and gradual until the growth rate of per capita disposable income picks up significantly.
In 2020, the national investment in fixed assets will increase by 2.9%. Among them, the growth rate of manufacturing investment, real estate investment and infrastructure investment reached -2.2%, 5.0% and 3.4% respectively. It is not difficult to see that the recovery of manufacturing investment obviously lags behind real estate investment and infrastructure investment.
The resilience of real estate investment in 2020 obviously exceeds market expectations. However, due to the influence of the three red lines in the balance sheet and the concentration of real estate loans from commercial banks, it is estimated that the growth rate of real estate investment in 20021year will not continue to rise significantly. In fact, the cumulative year-on-year growth rate of real estate investment from 65438 to February 2020 has been the same as that of165438+1October, which failed to continue the previous continuous improvement.
In the first half of 2020, the market expects a high rebound in the growth rate of infrastructure investment, but in the end, the growth rate of infrastructure investment in 2020 is only 3.4%. There are three reasons why the growth rate of infrastructure investment is less than expected. First, the local government's stock debt is under great pressure to repay the principal and interest, so a large part of the new special debt in 2020 will eventually be used to repay the principal and interest, rather than new investment. Secondly, influenced by the experience and lessons of the 4 trillion period after 2008, the central government has become more cautious in approving local government infrastructure projects and paid more attention to the cost-benefit and sustainability of the projects. Third, the assessment of local officials is more intertemporal, which also makes local officials more cautious in infrastructure investment. 202 1 considering that fiscal policy is likely to be tightened marginally, it is predicted that even if the growth rate of infrastructure investment increases, the upward trajectory will not be steep.
At present, the market is optimistic about the rebound of manufacturing investment in 20021,and thinks that the inventory level of industrial enterprises has reached a relatively low point, and a new round of inventory investment cycle may appear in 202 1. However, whether a manufacturing enterprise will increase its inventory significantly still depends on its judgment on the changes in internal and external demand. Considering that the improvement of entrepreneurs' micro-feelings under the impact of the epidemic has lagged behind the macro-data, entrepreneurs may still be cautious about new investment. This means that the inventory investment cycle of 202 1 may not be too strong. There is great uncertainty whether the cumulative year-on-year growth rate of fixed assets investment at the end of 2002 10% can be achieved.
In 2020, the year-on-year growth rate of China's exports and imports (in US dollars) will be 3.6% and-1. 1% respectively, and the trade surplus of goods will reach 535 billion US dollars, setting a new high since 20 15 years. It should be said that the export in 2020 is one of the biggest highlights of China's economy, exceeding the expectations of almost all economists. The year-on-year growth rate of dollar-denominated exports rebounded from -40.6% in February 2020 to 20.6% in June 2020, which is unprecedented. In my opinion, there are three reasons why the recovery of export growth rate is so strong. First of all, the global epidemic has made the export of China's medical sector and telecommuting sector reach a historical peak. Second, since the second quarter of 2020, due to the unsynchronized outbreak of epidemic at home and abroad, the importance of China's exports in the global market has increased at least in the short term. Third, from the second half of 2020, external demand began to recover. 202 1, I'm afraid it is difficult to see the superposition of the above three good news, so the export growth rate of 202 1 may be better than the first half of 2020, but it may be weaker than the second half of 2020.
To sum up, from the perspective of the troika, in 2020, exports, real estate investment and infrastructure investment performed relatively well, while consumption and manufacturing investment performed relatively well, and the pattern of economic recovery was unbalanced. 202 1, the growth rate of consumption and manufacturing investment will continue to recover, while the growth rate of export and real estate investment may be difficult to continue to improve, and the growth trend of infrastructure investment is uncertain. So the economic growth of 202 1 may be more balanced, but the level will not be too high.
The year-on-year growth rate of CPI dropped from 5.4% in June 2020 to -0.5% in June 2020, and rose to 0.2% in February 2020. The year-on-year growth rate of core CPI in that month decreased from10.5% in 2020 to 0.4% in February 2020. This means that in 2020, food prices and non-food energy prices will both rise and fall. The year-on-year growth rate of PPI in that month was continuously negative 1 1 month from February 2020 to February 2028. But relatively speaking, the good news is that the year-on-year growth rate of PPI has rebounded from the current low of -3.7% in May 2020 to -0.4% in February 2020, and may turn from negative to positive in 20021early. Looking forward to 20021,the year-on-year growth rate of CPI and PPI will turn from decline to increase, but the extent of increase is uncertain, and the year-on-year growth rate of PPI may exceed CPI. But at least in the first half of 20021,the year-on-year growth rate of both CPI and PPI will be significantly lower than the target level of the central bank.
In 2020, China's monetary policy operation can be described as ice and fire. Before May 2020, monetary policy was generally very loose. For example, in the first four months of 2020, the central bank lowered the RRR three times. However, after May 2020, there has been an obvious marginal tightening of monetary policy. For example, the three-month SHIBOR decreased from about 3.0% at the beginning of 2020 to about 1.4% at the end of April 2020, and then rose to about 3. 1% at the end of 2020 10. For another example, the yield of 10-year treasury bonds dropped from about 3. 1% at the beginning of 2020 to about 2.5% at the end of April 2020, and then rose to about 3.3% at the end of 1 1. Under the background that the economic growth rate is still significantly lower than the potential growth rate, the marginal tightening of monetary policy operation since May 2020 reflects the difficult trade-off between maintaining growth and controlling risks by the central bank.
The author thinks that the operation of 202 1 monetary policy should be more selective and cautious, so as to avoid the de facto "sharp turn" caused by excessive tightening of monetary policy. The main reasons are as follows:
First, as mentioned above, in 20021year, economic growth will be restricted by some structural factors, whether it is the growth rate of consumption or the growth rate of manufacturing investment, the high probability will only pick up moderately. However, due to the strengthening of regulatory policies and changes in the external environment, the growth rate of real estate investment and export may fall back. In other words, in 20021year, China's economy still faces certain growth pressure, especially after excluding the year-on-year high growth caused by the base period effect in the first quarter of 20021year.
Second, although the price trend of 202 1 may rebound, the degree of rebound may be limited, which is still significantly lower than the target level of the central bank. In other words, inflation is not the main factor that the central bank should consider when tightening monetary policy in 20021.
Fourthly, in the second half of 2020, China's monetary policy was marginally tightened with confidence, partly because the fiscal policy in 2020 was very loose. Compared with 2020, China's fiscal policy is likely to be marginally tightened in 20021year. First, the ratio of the central fiscal deficit to GDP may be lowered from 3.6% to 3.0-3.2%. Second, 1 trillion special anti-epidemic national debt will probably not continue to happen. Third, it is difficult to increase the amount of local special bonds as much as in 2020. On the premise of marginal tightening of fiscal policy, if monetary policy is tightened too fast, the superposition of two policy tightening may lead to a "sharp turn" of policy.
Fifth, in the second half of 2020, there was a wave of collective default of industrial bonds of local state-owned enterprises in the domestic financial market. Although this wave came to an end due to the timely intervention of the central government. However, the pressure on local governments and state-owned enterprises to repay the principal and interest is still great. Considering the negative growth of PPI and the rise of long-term risk-free interest rate, this means that the refinancing cost of the above-mentioned entities will rise sharply in the second half of 2020. In order to prevent and resolve the possible systemic risks in the credit bond market, the central bank should also avoid the excessive rise of long-term risk-free interest rates in the process of economic recovery.
Sixth, from June 2020 to the end of 2020, the exchange rate of RMB against the US dollar appreciated by 8%. The main reason for this round of appreciation is that after the economic growth gap between China and the United States widened, the spread between China and the United States widened, leading to a large number of short-term capital inflows arbitrage. If the RMB exchange rate continues to appreciate rapidly, on the one hand, it may impact economic growth through import and export channels, on the other hand, it may threaten financial stability through hot money inflows and rising asset prices. Therefore, after comprehensively weighing the above factors, it should also be one of the considerations of the Bank of China to avoid excessively widening the spread between China and the United States and intensifying the pressure of RMB appreciation.