【英语财经】中国经济挑战远不止人民币 China’s fiscal challenges extend far beyond currency

The sudden fall in China’s currency last week spurred a lively debate about whether the move was a victory for market reform or a competitive devaluation designed to shore up flagging exports.

But even those who believe the 3 per cent drop was aimed at exporters accept that a weaker renminbi by itself is radically insufficient to cope with the challenges facing China’s economy.

“Currency depreciation to stimulate export growth is neither useful nor necessary,” said Qu Hongbin, HSBC chief China economist. He notes that while China’s exports have fallen this year, “exporters across Asia faced the same challenge, suggesting that the underlying problem is sluggish demand in developed markets”.

China’s economy officially grew at an annual rate of 7 per cent during the first half of this year, neatly in line with the government’s full-year target. However, some doubt that figure — Capital Economics, for example, reckons it is 5-6 per cent — and there are widespread suggestions that further stimulus will be needed to prevent a slowdown.

Yet an export revival would boost growth only marginally. Contrary to received wisdom, China has not pursued so-called “export-led growth” for the past decade. Net exports subtracted 3 per cent from annual growth in Chinese gross domestic product on average from 2004 to 2014. Meanwhile, investment contributed an average of 52 per cent of growth each year.

The importance of investment explains why data released last week will keep Premier Li Keqiang awake at night. Fixed-asset investment grew at its slowest pace since 2000 in the first seven months of 2015, led by a collapse in property investment. Factory output in July was also barely above the four-year low touched in March.

“China economic data for July may have lacked the lethal explosive force of last night’s detonation in the industrial city of Tianjin, but it laid bare the wider deterioration of domestic macroeconomic conditions,” Chen Long, China economist at Gavekal Dragonomics, a research firm, wrote last week.

Though property sales have begun to inch up following 13 consecutive months of decline, the market remains saddled with a huge overhang of unsold flats. That has caused developers to pull back on new construction, hitting demand for basic materials such as steel and cement. Faced with this slowdown, factories that produce these commodities are cutting back both on current output and investment in new capacity.

Even more distressing are signs that the production slowdown may finally be feeding through to the labour market.

China’s leaders are sensitive to the risk of social instability from a spike in idle workers, but they have so far been willing to tolerate four consecutive years of economic deceleration because unemployment remained low. That may now be changing.

China’s official unemployment rate is widely dismissed as unreliable, but an index of labour demand based on proprietary survey data from FT Confidential, a research service of the Financial Times, shows labour demand contracting in July for the first time since 2012.

The index hit 49.3 last month, down from an average of 67.8 in the first six months. A reading below 50 indicates falling demand for workers.

Mr Li has repeatedly said China will not resort to heavy-handed stimulus that would boost short-term growth but exacerbate problems with excess debt and industrial overcapacity. Instead, the leadership wants structural reforms to promote a new growth model that relies more on consumption and services.

Sticking to that pledge means enduring the pain of an investment slowdown, as smokestack industries that thrived under the old model give way to emerging ones such as healthcare, education, tourism and information technology.

So far the government has employed targeted stimulus in the form of fiscal spending on infrastructure, while resisting pressure to unleash a wave of lending from commercial banks to the manufacturing sector, as in 2008. That stimulus plan led to a quadrupling of China’s economy-wide debt from $7tn in 2007 to $28tn by mid-2014, equivalent to 282 per cent of GDP. But if the job market continues to worsen, pressure for drastic measures will increase.

The wild card is deflation. Wholesale prices have fallen for 40 straight months, with the decline accelerating in July. Falling global commodity prices are largely to blame for Chinese deflation, but that is cold comfort for indebted companies whose nominal cash flows are in decline, even as the debt they owe remains fixed.

In an illustration deflation is undermining deleveraging efforts, China’s debt-to-GDP ratio has continued to rise this year, even as new borrowing fell 21 per cent in the first seven months from the same period a year ago. That is because disinflation has caused nominal GDP to slow even more sharply than outstanding debt.

Tao Wang, chief China economist at UBS, said: “Clearly, the overwhelming problem for China remains one of rising deflationary pressures.”

人民币汇率上周突然下挫，引发了一场热烈的辩论：此举是市场改革的胜利还是竞争性贬值行为（目的旨在提振萎靡不振的出口）？

但是，就连那些相信汇率下降3%意在帮助出口企业的人也承认，人民币走低本身根本不足以应对中国经济所面临的挑战。

“用货币贬值来刺激出口增长既没有用，也没有必要，”汇丰(HSBC)中国区首席经济学家屈宏斌表示。他指出，尽管中国的出口在今年下降了，但“整个亚洲的出口商面临着同样的挑战，这似乎表明根本问题是发达市场需求不振”。

按照官方统计数据，中国经济今年上半年同比增长7%，刚好达到政府的全年目标。然而，有些机构对这个数字表示怀疑——例如，凯投宏观(Capital Economics)估计实际数字是5%至6%——同时各方普遍提出，中国需要出台进一步刺激措施才能阻止经济放缓。

然而，出口复苏对经济增长的推动作用将是微不足道的。与一般人所认为的相反，中国在过去10年并未追逐所谓的“出口导向型增长”。2004年至2014年期间，净出口对中国国内生产总值(GDP)年均增长的贡献是负3%，而投资对年均增长的贡献达到52%。

投资的重要性解释了上周发布的数据为什么会使中国总理李克强难以安睡。2015年头七个月，固定资产投资以2000年以来最慢的速度增长，首要原因是房地产投资崩溃。7月工业产出也只是勉强高于3月触及的四年低点。

“中国7月经济数据也许没有工业城市天津昨晚爆炸的那种致命破坏力，但它使国内宏观经济状况的全面恶化表露无遗，”研究咨询公司龙洲经讯(Gavekal Dragonomics)中国经济学家陈龙上周写道。

虽然房地产销售在经历了连续13个月的下滑后已开始小幅回升，但市场仍背负着巨大的未售出公寓单位存量。这已导致开发商缩减新开工量，进而减弱对钢材和水泥等基本材料的需求。面对这样的放缓，生产这些商品的工厂既削减了当前产出，又削减了对新产能的投资。

更令人不安的是，有迹象表明，生产放缓的影响可能终于传递到了劳动力市场。

中国领导人对于闲散人员激增所带来的社会不稳定风险相当敏感，但他们迄今愿意容忍连续四年的经济减速，因为失业率一直保持低位。这种局面现在可能会改变。

中国官方的失业率数据受到广泛不屑，被视为不可靠，但根据英国《金融时报》旗下《中国投资参考》(China Confidential)专有调查数据编制的劳动力需求指数显示，7月劳动力需求出现2012年以来首次萎缩。

上月该指数为49.3，低于今年头六个月67.8的平均值。该指数低于50表明对工人需求下降。

李克强曾多次表示，中国不会采取粗放的刺激措施，这种措施会提振短期增长却加剧负债过度和工业产能过剩的问题。相反，领导层希望推行结构性改革，以促进新的增长模式，在更大程度上依赖消费和服务业。

坚守这一承诺意味着忍受投资放缓的痛苦，让曾经在旧模式下蓬勃发展的烟囱产业让位于新兴行业，如医疗保健、教育、旅游和信息技术。

迄今政府采取了以基建财政投入为形式的针对性的刺激措施，同时顶住了让商业银行向制造业大举放贷的压力。中国曾在2008年鼓励银行放贷，那个经济刺激计划导致中国经济的债务总量增至原有水平的四倍，从2007年的7万亿美元增加到2014年年中的28万亿美元，相当于GDP的282%。但是，如果就业市场继续恶化，要求采取有力措施的压力将会增大。

通缩是一个未知因素。批发价格已连续40个月下降，7月的下降有所加速。中国的通缩压力在很大程度上可归咎于全球大宗商品价格下滑，但对于债台高筑的企业（它们的名义现金流在缩小，而欠下的债务价值没有变化），这一点算不上安慰。

突显通缩破坏去杠杆化努力的是，中国的债务与GDP之比今年继续上升，即使今年头七个月新增贷款同比下降21%。这是因为通缩压力造成的名义GDP减速超过未偿债务的减速。

瑞银(UBS)首席中国经济学家汪涛表示：“显然，中国首当其冲的问题仍是通缩压力不断加大。”

译者/和风