【英语财经】中国新宏观经济战略浮出水面 China’s new macro strategy

In the past few years, China’s macro-economic strategy has largely failed to command the confidence of investors in developed markets, despite the fact that the reported performance of the economy has remained fairly impressive.

Part of the problem has been that there does not seem to have been a coherent, joined-up strategy for maintaining growth while rebalancing the economy towards consumption, and reducing overall debt levels. The policy transparency now taken for granted in the developed economies has not come naturally to the Chinese political system, as Ben Bernanke has pointed out.

China has been trying to improve on this record, in consultation with senior western advisers in some cases. In the past two weeks, there has been evidence of “glasnost with Chinese characteristics” in the economic announcements emerging from the annual meetings of the National People’s Congress.

The overall thrust of Chinese macro strategy now seems to be broadly what is needed, but the intended switch away from “zombie” manufacturing companies towards the new economy will happen only at a moderate pace, consistent with the 6.5-7.0 per cent GDP target, and with no overall rise in unemployment.

With the new strategy in place, the Chinese “landing” does not have to be a hard one, but it is still likely to be a long story, with many twists and turns before it is fully resolved.

The latest policy changes are confronting a deteriorating economic situation since the start of the year. The graph below, taken from Fulcrum’s nowcast models, encapsulates the key features of Chinese growth in the current decade:

The long run growth rate (mainly determined by the supply side of the economy) has slowed from 10 per cent at the start of the decade to only 6 per cent now. Not much can be done about that.

There is also clear evidence of a mini cycle around this trend that has an average duration (from peak to peak) of only about a year. The latest mini cycle seems to have lurched downwards in the past 3 months. The estimated activity growth rate today is around 4.7 per cent, which is lower than at previous troughs of the mini cycle, and the model’s confidence bands now extend downwards to 2 per cent, which would represent a true hard landing.

Yet the markets seem completely untroubled by this development, believing that it will prove temporary, and will be reversed by the latest stimulus from demand management. This optimistic expectation will probably prove accurate, though there will be some nervousness until the nowcast starts to rebound.

Macro policy faces a very difficult challenge. It needs to accelerate the rebalancing of the economy without proceeding so rapidly that a hard landing becomes likely. Ideally, such a strategy would have the following ingredients:

- fairly rapid closure of moribund capacity in the manufacturing sector to reduce deflationary pressures;

- easier monetary policy to assist domestic demand and cushion the property sector;

- easier fiscal policy, directed mainly towards boosting consumption rather than investment;

- a one-off adjustment (of about 10-15 per cent) in the exchange rate to restore confidence in the basket “peg”, thus ending destabilising capital outflows which undermine the necessary easing in domestic monetary conditions;

- a comprehensive programme to recapitalise the banking sector as loan write offs are accelerated, mainly in the area of non performing loans to the state owned enterprises;

- further reforms to broaden price signals in the financial and services sectors, and the labour market.

- In my opinion, these six points should be the benchmark by which the new macro strategy is assessed.

The good news is that the collection of policy announcements made at the NPC contains many of the elements of this package. For several months, the Premier has emphasised that a key priority for 2016 would be the closure of excess capacity in “zombie” state owned enterprises (SOEs), mainly in basic manufacturing.

In the past, the government has not been willing to bite this bullet. The declines in the output of basic industrial sectors in recent months suggest that they are more serious this time but the speed of this adjustment is limited by two factors.

The first is the over-riding need to protect the level of employment in the economy, which is already proving very difficult in some regions. The second is the need to recapitalise the banking sector as bad loans to the SOEs are increasingly recognised. There were indications last week that banks’ balance sheets might be addressed by allowing debt-for-equity swaps, and a sell-off in bank loans at market-determined prices.

As the SOE work-out takes place, the government has now clearly recognised the need to support the economy through easier monetary and fiscal policy if necessary.

On the monetary side, PBOC Governor Zhou said that the policy stance will remain on the looser edge of “prudent”, which is the central setting of the five main categories used by the central bank. The announcement of a 13 per cent target for M2 growth, and a new 13 per cent target for total social financing, suggest that the authorities have now accepted that they cannot bring down overall leverage in the economy at present. In fact, with nominal GDP likely to rise by only about 8-9 per cent this year, the debt/GDP ratio will continue to rise rapidly. No change in the “basket peg” for the exchange rate is likely, which might mean that further squalls will take place in the currency markets.

On the fiscal side, the new budgetary announcements suggest that the overall thrust of policy will be slightly expansionary, though independent fiscal watchers have reached different conclusions on how expansionary it will be in practice.

The table shows J.P. Morgan’s estimates of the various budget categories. The official budget (lines 1 plus 2) shows little change in the policy stance, but there is a consensus among fiscal watchers that quasi-fiscal easing (lines 5 to 7) will increase markedly if needed.

Although the Premier has emphasised that there will be tax reductions to support the household sector (which will make Ben Bernanke happy), it seems inevitable that the main source of fiscal support will come from infrastructure spending, as it has always done in the past. In fact, that is clearly shown in the fixed investment data released so far in 2016.

What is the overall verdict? In many ways, the strategy resembles the SOE work-out that occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s (well summarised here). That involved many years of hard graft, but it did succeed in the end.

在过去的几年中，中国的宏观经济战略总体上未能博得发达市场投资者的信任，尽管从公布的数据来看，中国的经济表现仍然颇为可观。

一部分原因是中国似乎缺乏一套连贯、成熟、使保持增长和推动经济再平衡以及降低总体债务水平这三方面工作能够齐头并进的战略。正如本?伯南克(Ben Bernanke)所言，如今在发达经济体中被视为理所当然的政策透明，在中国的政治体制中还没有成为自然而然的事情。

中国一直在试图改善这一记录，在一些情况下还向西方高级顾问征询意见。过去两周，有证据显示，中国一年一度的全国人大会议所发布的经济声明体现出了“具有中国特色的公开性”。

中国宏观经济战略的总体要旨似乎大致上正是当前所需要的，但计划中的转变——从“僵尸”制造业企业转向新经济——只会缓慢地进行，与国内生产总值(GDP)增长6.5%至7.0%的目标以及确保整体失业率不上升的任务保持一致。

在新的战略下，中国经济的“着陆”不一定会是“硬着陆”，但仍可能是一段漫长的旅程，需要经历很多的迂回曲折才会完全解决问题。

最新的政策改革正面临着经济形势自年初以来不断恶化的局面。下图来自支点资产管理公司(Fulcrum)的“即时预测”(nowcast)模型，概括了本10年中国经济增长的主要特征。



长期增速（主要由经济的供应侧决定）已从本10年初的10%降至现在的6%。没什么办法能改变这种趋势。

还有明显的证据表明，围绕这一主要趋势存在一种“迷你”周期，一般仅持续一年左右（从波峰到波峰）。过去3个月，最新“迷你”周期似乎已转为下行。目前的活动增速估值为4.7%左右，低于这个“迷你”周期之前的波谷。模型的置信带现在向下方延伸至2%的水平，那代表着真正的硬着陆。

然而，市场似乎完全没有受到这种变化的困扰，市场仍相信，这将被证明为是短暂的，来自需求管理的最新刺激措施将逆转这一趋势。这种乐观的预测或许会被证明为是正确的，不过，在“即时预测”模型开始反弹之前，仍然会存在一些紧张情绪。

宏观政策面临艰巨挑战。它需要加快经济再平衡进程，但又不能过快推进再平衡以免经济硬着陆。理想情况下，这样的战略将具有以下要素：

——快速关闭制造业部门的冗余产能以降低通缩压力；

——更为宽松的货币政策以提振内需并为房地产部门提供缓冲；

——更为积极的财政政策，主要致力于促进消费而非投资；

——一次性调整人民币汇率（大约10%-15%）以恢复人们对“盯住”一篮子货币汇率制度的信心，从而让资本不再外流。资本外流会破坏稳定，侵蚀国内所需的宽松货币环境；

——出台全面的银行部门资本重整措施，原因是不良贷款核销在加快，主要是在国企不良贷款领域；

——进一步改革以拓宽金融和服务领域以及劳动力市场的价格信号。

——就我看来，这6点应该是评估新宏观战略的基准。

好消息是，中国全国人大会议宣布的一系列政策举措包含了这套战略的许多要素。李克强数月来强调，2016年的首要任务之一将是关闭“僵尸”国企的过剩产能，主要是在基础制造业。

在过去，中国政府一直不愿承受这种痛苦。最近几个月基础工业部门产出下降表明，他们这次更为郑重其事，但这种调整速度受到两个因素的制约。

第一是维持经济中就业水平的首要任务——事实已经证明，这在一些地区非常困难。第二是随着国企不良贷款日益得到承认，有必要在银行业部门进行资本重整。上周有迹象显示，由于允许“债转股”，并以市场决定的价格出售银行贷款，银行资产负债表问题可能得到解决。

随着国企改革展开，中国政府现在显然认识到，必要的时候，应该出台更为宽松的货币和财政政策来支持经济。

在货币政策方面，中国人民银行(PBOC)行长周小川表示，中国将依然保持“稳健略偏宽松”的货币政策立场——在该央行的五大类政策立场中，稳健居于中心位置。M2增长13%以及社会融资总量增长13%的目标表明，中国当局如今承认，现在不可能降低经济中的整体杠杆水平。实际上，由于今年名义GDP可能仅增长8%-9%左右，债务与GDP的比率将继续迅速上升。“盯住一篮子货币”的汇率制度可能不会有任何改变，这意味着外汇市场可能出现进一步动荡。

在财政政策方面，新预算声明表明，总体政策立场将是略微扩张性的，尽管独立的财政观察家对实践中扩张程度会有多大意见不同。

下表显示出摩根大通(J.P. Morgan)对不同预算类型的估计。官方预算（第一行和第二行）表明政策立场几乎没有改变。但财政观察家的共识是，准财政扩张措施（第5行到第7行）在必要情况下将会明显增加。



尽管李克强强调，将会出台减税措施以支持家庭部门（这将让伯南克感到高兴），但似乎不可避免的是，财政支持的主要源头将来自基础设施支出，就像过去的惯常做法那样。实际上，2016年迄今的固定投资数据清楚地表明了这一点。

总的结论是什么？从许多方面来说，该战略很像上世纪90年代末和本世纪头十年初的国企改革（这就很好地进行了总结）。那些改革经历了多年的艰苦努力，但最终取得了成功。

译者/何黎

注：此文最初发表在FT.com博客专栏中。本文作者是一位宏观经济学家，现为支点资产管理公司(Fulcrum Asset Management)董事长、Prisma Capital Partners联合创始人。