【英语财经】别对印度经济过早喝彩 Three reasons not to count India’s chickens

So it is official. India is the only Bric left standing. Brazil, which shrank 4.5 per cent year on year in the third quarter, seems destined for its worst recession since the 1930s. Russia’s oil-dependent economy is in the grip of fierce contraction and South Africa has only just managed to avoid outright recession. Even the mighty China, after years of stimulus and over-reliance on ozone-destroying heavy industry, is growing at its slowest pace in 25 years.

That leaves India alone among the once-vaunted Brics nations putting up a decent show. Official data this week show that its economy grew 7.4 per cent in the third quarter from a year earlier, accelerating from 7 per cent in the previous three months. The performance, driven by fixed capital investment and industrial production, was more impressive still given that output from farming, which employs about half India’s workforce, is limping along at 2.2 per cent. On the face of it, there is much growth to be had simply by shifting some of those farm labourers into more productive sectors. In short, the world’s third-largest economy in purchasing power parity terms can now legitimately lay claim to be the global economy’s most impressive outperformer.

Indeed, much is going right for India. Even before Narendra Modi swept to power last year in a blaze of optimism, its economic fundamentals were im-proving. Low oil prices are a boon: they have helped repair a current account position that once put the country among the most vulnerable to US Federal Reserve-induced capital outflows. Its growth is less dependent on exports than that of many developing economies, with 70 per cent of gross domestic product driven by consumption.

In Raghuram Rajan, its central bank governor, it has a figure akin to Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman, in his determination to control inflation, a phenomenon that is particularly damaging to the hundreds of millions of India’s poor. Steady improvement on that front means India now has the room to lower interest rates: they have already come down 1.25 percentage points this year.

Nor can the “Modi effect” be discounted. Although some of the shine of the prime minister’s election victory has been wiped off by subsequent defeats — most recently in the state of Bihar — India has a greater sense of purpose than it did in the final lacklustre years of Manmohan Singh’s administration. Mr Modi has ramped up spending on infrastructure and taken credible steps to deal with the legacy of rampant corruption in the auction of government assets from coal to telecoms spectrum.

It would be wrong, however, to take continued outperformance for granted. That is what countries such as Brazil and Russia did — and look where they are now. India has many problems bubbling beneath the surface, from bad debts in the banking system to a worrying reluctance of entrepreneurs to invest in their own, seemingly successful, economy. Most of the rise in investment has been government-led.

There are at least three reasons not to count India’s chickens just yet. First is the slow pace of reform. Despite all his vim and vigour, Mr Modi has found it hard to push his agenda through Delhi’s political process. Because of a hostile upper house, almost nothing of import was passed in the last parliamentary session. Optimists say the wily prime minister will get the better of the system yet. One hope is that he will spark competition between states implementing, say, the most attractive land reform as they vie for investment. Many hope that one more push will result in the enactment of a much-delayed goods and services tax. Reform of restrictive labour laws, which will hobble Mr Modi’s ambition to make India a manufacturing hub, has not even been discussed.

Nor is it clear whether the GDP numbers can be taken at face value. A rebasing exercise means that the 7.4 per cent headline figure is almost certainly flattering. The outwardly robust performance is hard to square with other data such as weak corporate earnings, slow motorcycle sales and subdued loan growth.

Finally, even if we believe the numbers, headline GDP growth is not everything. Of course, poor countries need to grow fast if they are to tackle poverty. Yet, unless they lay the foundations for development — not only through appropriate reforms but also through investments in health and education — that growth can quickly peter out. India lags behind its peers in measures of health, literacy and its record on improving the position of women. None of this bodes well for a country where, courtesy of a youthful population, almost one in five of all global jobs must be created in the next several decades.

For the moment, India is a standout. But as the fading fortunes of its fellow Brics demonstrate, that is no guarantee of future success.

局面已经明朗。印度是金砖五国中唯一一个还站着的。巴西今年第三季度GDP同比萎缩4.5%，似乎注定将要陷入自上世纪30年代以来最严重的衰退。依赖石油的俄罗斯经济陷入了严重的收缩，南非勉强躲过了绝对值意义上的经济衰退。即使是强大的中国，在多年的经济刺激和过度依赖污染严重的重工业后，现在的增长速度也是25年以来最慢的。

这使印度成了一度被大肆吹嘘的金砖国家中唯一表现像样的。最近的官方数据表明，第三季度印度经济同比增长7.4%，比之前三个月的7%有所加快。这一增长依靠固定资本投资和工业生产拉动，考虑到雇佣了印度约一半劳动力的农业的产出仅增长2.2%，这样的成绩就更令人印象深刻了。从表面上看，只需将一部分农业劳动力转移到生产力更高的经济部门，印度就可以实现大幅增长。简言之，以购买力平价(PPP)衡量的世界第三大经济体，现在有理由自称为全球头号表现超常的经济体。

的确，印度在很多方面相当顺利。即使在去年纳伦德拉?莫迪(Narendra Modi)在一片乐观情绪中高票当选之前，印度的经济基本面就在好转。低油价带来了巨大的益处：低油价帮助修复了印度的经常账户状况，后者一度使该国成为最易受美联储(Fed)引发的资本外流影响的国家之一。比起很多发展中经济体，印度经济增长对出口的依赖程度较低，其70%的国内生产总值(GDP)是靠消费拉动的。

通胀给数亿印度穷人带来的苦难尤为深重，在控制通胀的决心方面，印度央行行长拉吉拉姆?拉詹(Raghuram Rajan)堪比美联储前主席保罗?沃尔克(Paul Volcker)。通胀问题的稳步改善意味着印度现在有降息空间：今年印度已经降息1.25个百分点。

“莫迪效应”也不可低估。尽管莫迪选举大胜的光芒因为后来的一些失败——最近的一次是在比哈尔邦(Bihar)——变得黯淡了一些，但比起曼莫汉?辛格(Manmohan Singh)政府无所作为的最后几年，现在的印度目标感更强。莫迪加大了对基础设施的投入，并采取可信的措施对付政府资产（从煤矿到电信频谱）拍卖所遗留的猖獗腐败。

然而，印度如果认为自己将理所当然地保持超常表现就错了。前些年巴西和俄罗斯就是这么做的——看看那两个国家的现状吧。印度经济亮丽的表面之下有很多问题在发酵——从银行体系内的坏账，到企业家不愿投资国内似乎十分成功的经济这一令人忧虑的态度。投资增长的大部分是由政府主导的。

现在还不到盘点印度成就的时候，原因至少有三条。首先是改革步伐缓慢。尽管莫迪决心很大，但他要推动自己的议程通过德里的政治进程并不容易。由于印度上院的反对，最近一个议会会期几乎没有通过任何重要法案。乐观者表示，这位老谋深算的总理会胜过这个体制的。其中一个希望在于，他会在各邦之间引入竞争机制，在它们争取投资之际看哪个邦能够实施最具吸引力的土地改革。许多人希望，再努力一次，就能推动拖延已久的商品和服务税通过立法程序。印度限制过多的劳动法会阻碍莫迪将印度打造为一个制造强国的抱负，而对劳动法的改革甚至还未开始。

也不清楚官方的GDP数字是否信得过。统计基准的调整改变意味着，7.4%的整体增长数据几乎肯定有所夸大。这种貌似强劲的表现很难与其它数据（如疲弱的企业盈利、低迷的摩托车销售和乏力的贷款增长）吻合。

最终，即使我们相信数据，GDP整体增长数据也不代表一切。当然，贫穷的国家如果要应对贫困，就需要快速增长。然而，除非它们为发展打下基础——不仅是通过适当的改革，还需要对健康和教育进行投入——否则经济增长可能会迅速失去势头。在健康、识字率和提升女性地位的纪录方面，印度落后于同类国家。这些对印度都不是好兆头，因为印度年轻的人口结构意味着，未来几十年该国必须创造全球近五分之一工作机会。

就目前而言，印度表现出色。但就像其他金砖国家走下坡路所展现出的那样，这并不是未来成功的保证。

译者/许雯佳