【英语中国】中国消费支出增加 仍非经济主要推动力

China's consumers have been spending more than previously believed, according to the latest revisions to the country's economic data. But that newfound spending isn't enough to alter the balance of power in an economy that is still primarily driven by investment.

China's statistical authorities have over the past few months revised several years of figures to reflect the results of their latest economic census, which uncovered much activity that had been missed by earlier surveys. The result has been an increase in estimates of household spending by about $126 billion spread over eight years.

China's statistical system, which was formed in the planned-economy era, tends to be better at counting the output of state enterprises than tracking the consumption decisions of 1.3 billion people. Morgan Stanley economist Wang Qing, among others, has argued that official statistics miss a lot of Chinese consumer spending on housing and health care.

So it is perhaps not surprising that the National Bureau of Statistics' on-the-ground efforts discovered additional household spending equivalent to about 0.8% of annual gross domestic product over the years 2004 to 2008, and smaller amounts in 2001 to 2003. In 2008, for instance, household expenditure was revised up to CNY11.06 trillion, an increase of CNY220.23 billion, or about $29 billion at the exchange rate of the time.

These broad measures of consumer spending in China come from the breakdown of gross domestic product as calculated by the expenditure method. The annual figures--the product of different calculations than the quarterly data that capture most of the headlines--are valuable because they provide internationally comparable measures of the major drivers of China's growth: household spending, government and corporate investment. (The revised historical GDP figures are not online, but were published in print in the bureau's China Statistical Abstract 2010.)

The additional household spending recently discovered by Chinese statisticians does not, however, change the overall picture of the Chinese economy: It is still one where consumption accounts for an unusually low share, and investment an unusually high one. And that imbalance appears to have been worsened by the huge government stimulus program.

For 2009, the share of household spending in GDP rose to 35.6% from a revised 35.1% in 2008--the first increase since 2000. Rather than a turning point, that's mainly a statistical artifact reflecting the collapse in the trade surplus in 2009, which meant that the share of both investment and consumption in GDP increased.

Unsurprisingly in the context of the global crisis, growth in household consumption slowed to 10.1% (without adjusting for inflation) in 2009, from 15.7% in 2008, according to the latest figures. With government and banks supporting investment, fixed-capital formation grew more than twice as fast at 21.3% and increased its share in the economy to an unprecedented 47.5%.

Though China's government leaders have long urged a transition to an economy driven by sustainable growth in household spending, rather than boom-and-bust cycles of investment, it looks like they still have a long way to go.

根据对中国经济数据的最新修正，中国消费者支出高于此前预期。但新发现的支出不足以改变中国经济主要仍由投资驱动的力量均势。


过去几个月中国统计机构修正了几年的数据，反映了最新的经济统计结果，发现在此前的调查中漏掉许多经济活动。该结果反映过去八年家庭支出估计增加约1260亿美元。

建立于计划经济时代的中国统计体系更擅长计算国有企业的产出，而不是追踪13亿人口的消费决策。摩根士丹利经济学家王庆等人认为，官方数据漏掉了中国消费者在住宅和医疗保健方面的大量支出。

国家统计局发现的另外家庭支出相当于2004至2008年每年国内生产总值（GDP）的约0.8%，还有2001至2003年较少的支出数据，可能并不令人惊讶。以2008年为例，家庭支出向上修正至11.06万亿元人民币，增加了2202.3亿元人民币，以当时汇率计算约合290亿美元。

中国对消费者支出广泛的衡量方式来自以支出方式计算的国内生产总值的明细。年度数据来自各种计算方式，而不是在大多数报导中出现的季度数据，这样的年度数据是有价值的，因为它们提供了中国经济主要推动力的国际对比标准，中国经济的主要推动力是：家庭支出、政府和企业投资。（对历史GDP数据的修正没有以电子版形式发布，而是在国家统计局出版的《中国统计小艾摘要－2010》一书中出现。）

但中国统计学家近期发现的更多家庭支出没有改变中国经济的整体状况：消费在中国经济中仍只占相当低的份额，投资则占异常高的份额，经济失衡似乎因政府庞大的财政刺激计划而更加恶化。

2009年家庭支出在GDP中所占比重从2008年修正后的35.1%增至35.6%，这是2000年以来首次增加，但这不是转折点，而主要是人为的统计数据，反映了2009年贸易顺差的大跌，这意味着投资和消费在GDP中所占比重都增加了。

在全球危机的背景下这没有什么让人惊讶的，根据最新数据，2009年家庭支出增幅从2008年的15.7%放缓至10.1%（未经通胀因素调整）。由于政府和银行支持投资，固定资本形成增长逾一倍，最高增速为21.3%，其在经济中所占比重前所未有地升到47.5%。

尽管中国政府领导人长期以来坚持向以家庭支出持续增长为驱动力的经济转型，而不是受投资荣衰交替带动，但中国似乎还有很长的路要走。