【英语中国】短线观点：中国经济数据可信吗？

Every time China produces a new download of economic numbers, it prompts the same question outside the country: do we believe them?

Earlier this year, the suspicion was that growth numbers had been “smoothed” to conceal a recession. Now, after China announced that its economy had grown by 8.9 per cent in real terms over the past 12 months, the suspicion is that this is an understatement.

London's Lombard Street Research, for example, reckoned that China's economy grew 7.5 per cent (a 30 per cent annualised rate) in the third quarter, having contracted in the fourth quarter of last year.

The data disappointed investors, with relatively risky assets losing value yesterday. But they still help to explain the growing concern over currencies.

Since 1989 (the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre), China's growth rate has never dipped below 6 per cent. The 1990s boom was achieved with the aid of a big devaluation. After the currency was allowed to rise 21 per cent against the dollar in three years from 2005, the peg came back just as China's growth began to fall. The renminbi remains 15 per cent cheaper against the dollar than it was in 1993.

With the dollar falling, that peg has seen China devalue significantly against other countries – by 17 per cent against the euro since last November, by 16.7 per cent against the yen since last August and by 30 per cent against the Brazilian real since last December (although it is still not as cheap against the real as it was last summer).

Many, if not most, hopes for global recovery are pinned on China buying goods from countries such as Brazil. Commodity prices, a key driver of equities and forex rates, also move in response to the new orders received by China's manufacturers.

This currency regime makes it far harder for such countries to sell to China. So it is no wonder that currencies are back at the top of the agenda.

中国每一次出炉一组新的经济数据，都会在海外引发同样的问题：我们相信这些数据吗？

今年早些时候，人们怀疑中国为了隐瞒经济陷入衰退，“粉饰”了增长数据。现在，中国宣布，剔出通胀因素后，第三季度同比经济增幅为8.9%，此时的怀疑是，这个数字可能是低报的。

例如，伦敦朗伯德街研究(Lombard Street Research)估计，中国第三季度经济增长7.5%（折合成年率为30%），而去年第四季度则有所萎缩。

公布的数据令投资者失望，风险较高的资产价值昨日有所缩水。但它们仍有助于解释人们对汇率问题的担忧为何与日俱增。

自1989年（天安门事件发生之年）以来，中国经济增长率从未跌破6%。上世纪90年代，借助于人民币大幅贬值，中国实现了繁荣。自2005年起的三年内，中国政府允许人民币兑美元汇率上升了21%，但随着中国增长率开始下降，人民币重新与美元挂钩。与1993年的水平相比，人民币兑美元仍贬值了15%。

随着美元走软，与美元挂钩的人民币兑其它货币出现了大幅贬值——自去年11月以来，人民币兑欧元贬值17%，自去年8月以来，兑日元贬值16.7%，自去年12月以来，兑巴西雷亚尔贬值30%（不过，兑雷亚尔汇率尚不及去年夏天那样低）。

许多人（即使不是大多数）将全球复苏寄希望于中国从巴西等国购买商品。大宗商品价格作为股市和汇市的关键驱动因素之一，也随着中国制造商接到的新订单做出反应。

当前的汇率极大地增加了这些国家向中国出口的难度。因此，难怪汇率问题又重新登上了议事日程的首位。

译者/何黎