经济增长方式转变恰逢其时

equality

经济增长方式转变恰逢其时

　　中国政府开始重视经济增长方式从数量到质量的转变。在过去三年，中国国内已经热烈地讨论经济增长方式转变问题。目前，经济增长质量已经深入人心。这将对中国的贸易政策、大宗商品需求、环境保护、银行改革和资本配置产生非常重要的影响。

　　西方国家对中国经济的印象主要建立在中国经济总量的巨大改变上。这完全可以理解，因为从1991年到现在，中国的人均GDP在15年间翻了两番以上，中国从全球第十大经济体跃升为第四大经济体。13亿人口加之年均10%左右的增长速度，中国经济发展产生的规模效应前所未有。当然，中国也需要如此快速的增长率来解决国企改革引起的大量职工下岗问题——仅1997年以来，累计下岗职工估计就超过6000万人。在这种失业状况下，中国别无选择，只能侧重于经济总量的增长。这一策略对于保持社会稳定非常关键——到目前为止，社会稳定是中国在此改革阶段所面临的最大风险。

　　但现在，国企改革的最困难时期已经过去。这使中国对经济总量增长的依赖有所减弱，从而可以有机会集中精神关注长期被忽视的改革与发展的质量问题。而且，经济增长方式的这种转变恰逢其时。片面追求经济总量增长的“负外部性”正不断显现出来。长期以来，由于中国出口导向型产业增长迅速，中国增长模式表现为过度的投资支出、宽松的银行信贷、环境恶化、几乎无法满足的石油需求、工业原材料需求和不断增加的贸易摩擦。过去四年，在工业总产值（工业总产值占中国GDP的50%左右）年均增长率上升到大约17%情况下，这些负外部性已经变得日益严重。从注重数量增长到质量提高的转变，说明中国已经意识到解决由过分注重数量增长所引发的负外部性问题的迫切需要。

　　贸易政策、工业技术和银行信贷等领域将是转变重点

　　在提高经济增长质量问题上，贸易政策是最迫切的问题。在中美战略经济对话会议上，由美国财长鲍尔森率领的高层代表团肯定不希望在双边贸易失衡问题上空手而归——2005年估计美中贸易逆差为2020亿美元，而2006年将至少为2250亿美元，整整占美国创纪录的贸易赤字的1/4。通过将对话内容从人民币汇率扩大到其他领域，鲍尔森已经为双边讨论搭建好了一个平台。但这并不意味美国代表团不会就人民币加速升值问题向中国施压。同时，美国代表团也将努力争取在同样重要的金融服务改革和知识产权保护（IPR）领域取得进步。

　　目前，中国政府可能很愿意加大力度保护知识产权。这其中有个重要原因：由于近年来中国产品在价值链上的地位迅速提高——从低端产品如玩具、纺织品转移到高附加值的技术产品——中国领导层意识到知识产权保护也有利于自身。现在，中国对知识资本的投资越来越多。OECD的数据表明中国对基础研究投资的快速增长。2006年，在研发投入上，中国超过日本，成为继美国之后的全球第二。因此，毫无疑问，中国现在希望保护自身的知识产权。

　　比如，像大多数机场一样，北京国际机场也变成了一个大型购物中心。对于即将离开中国的外国游客来说，聚集在北京奥运会特许商品零售店里的游客总是最多。这些商品都是“官方许可”的，贴有防伪标签。中国政府一直抱怨加强知识产权保护有多么困难，因为在中国制假工厂和销售组织可以在一夜之间就冒出来。但如果你想在露天市场购买到2008年奥运会的纪念商品，几乎是不可能的。如果中国人用心执行，几乎没有不能完成的任务。从2006年7月15日至10月25日的“反盗版百日行动”，就是一个很好的例子。

　　同时，中国也希望提高制造业技术水平。中国目前的环境恶化已经达到了相当严重的地步：根据世界银行的数据，全球污染最为严重的10个城市，其中7个就在中国。而且，中国在水污染方面也遥遥领先——中国排放的水有机污染物是排在第二位的美国的3倍，而美国经济总量是中国的5.5倍。同时，中国大量依赖于能源和其他原材料，生产效率很低。比如，根据国际能源署数据，中国目前单位GDP的耗油量大概是全球其他国家的两倍。中国“十一五”规划设定了明确目标，“十一五”期间，单位GDP的耗油量每年将减少4%，或者说五年将下降20%。另外，中国政府希望摆脱大量依靠基础金属和其他原材料的增长模式。无论是减少污染还是降低对能源和其他工业原料的需求，中国领导层高度认识到提高经济增长质量的重要性。

　　提高质量的另一个领域是银行信贷。有意思的是，中国银行监管者和银行业高管之间有个清楚的共识，即一旦中国经济增长放缓，另一轮不良贷款增加将不可避免。银行监管者和银行业人士都意识到，目前的过度投资已经为新一轮的不良贷款提供了滋生地。中国非常有必要提高资本配置过程的质量，而改革将是唯一的手段，尤其是要严格控制投资和贷款审批程序。从这个角度看，无论是以行政手段控制过热部门的固定资产投资，还是开始有选择地引进外商直接投资，都是有益的措施。不过，行政手段毕竟只是权宜之计，建立市场化的资本配置机制才是最终的解决之道。令人鼓舞的是，最近中国大型国有商业银行的上市将为中国日益商业化的银行借贷注入市场激励。但是，为了形成严格的商业导向的贷款文化，中国急需将高度分散的银行体系集权化。

　　目前，中国对改革的整体态度发生了微妙但是很重要的改变。去年春天，有明显迹象表明，允许跨国公司持有国内企业多数股份的改革出现了延迟，而这是改革进程的一个关键部分。有些人担心外国人正以低价买走中国的国有资产，特别是当中国股市上涨使外国人购买的股份的市值迅速上升的情况下。但据了解中国金融改革的知情人透露，这些担心已经减退。

　　中国能够承受经济减速之重，唯一风险在于外部冲击

　　毕竟，经济增长质量是中国经济可持续发展的关键。自1978年改革开放以来，中国采用了粗放型的增长方式，并取得了举世瞩目的成就。但是，随着中国经济的不断成熟，这种增长方式必然需要发生改变，经济增长质量也需要受到更大的关注。两种增长方式之间无疑存在此消彼长的关系，对经济增长质量的重视意味着中国将不得不降低经济总量的增长速度。但好消息是，作为年均增长10%的一个经济体，中国完全承受得起这种减速，而且似乎很愿意接受。与普遍观点相反的是，中国并不需要10-11%的经济增长率来保持社会稳定。中国“十一五”规划设定的目标仅是年均7.5%的增长率。

　　我认为，在中国经济增长方式转变过程中，外部冲击才是唯一真正的绊脚石。其中，以美国为主导的全球经济增长下滑或者政治力量驱动下的美国贸易保护主义是最大的风险，前者将导致暂时性的挫折，而后者将可能引发令人担忧的系统性风险。但如果不谈这些可能性，中国现在似乎更愿意付出经济增长放缓的代价，来提高经济增长的质量。这对于中国和世界来说，都是前所未有的。


　　英文原文：China Goes for Quality
The Chinese are getting serious in shifting the focus of their extraordinary economic development from quantity to quality. This transition has been actively discussed in China for over three years, but in extensive meetings in Beijing last week, I sensed that the quality debate has finally come to a head. This could have very important implications for China's trade policies, commodity demand, environmental considerations, banking reform, and its capital allocation process. It is a very big deal.

Western perceptions of the Chinese economy are formed largely on the basis of the quantity dimension of its remarkable transformation. This is perfectly understandable, as the nation's GDP per capita has more than quadrupled over the past 15 years -- taking China from the world's 10th largest economy in 1991 to the fourth largest today. With a population of 1.3 billion people, a 10% growth trajectory puts the scale effects of Chinese economic development in an entirely different league than the world has ever experienced. Given the daunting transition from state to private ownership, China needed such hyper-growth to offset the massive job losses stemming from the reforms of its state-owned enterprises -- cumulative headcount reductions estimated at more than 60 million workers since 1997, alone. The Chinese feel they had no choice other than to focus on the quantity of growth in the face of such extraordinary job loss. The strategy was critical in order to maintain social stability -- by far, the single greatest risk to this first phase of China's reform experience.

But now the most disruptive phase of SOE reforms is in the past. That eases China's dependence on the quantity imperatives of economic growth and allows reformers the opportunity to focus on the long-neglected quality dimension of its transformation and development. This shift in the character of economic growth couldn't come at a better time. The \"negative externalities\" of the quantity fixation are starting to loom increasingly formidable. Long dominated by exceptionally rapid gains in export-led industrial activity, the Chinese growth model has been characterized by open-ended investment spending, undisciplined bank funding, environmental degradation, nearly insatiable demand for oil and other industrial materials, and mounting trade frictions. With industrial output -- which makes up about 50% of Chinese GDP -- accelerating to a roughly 17% average annual growth rate over the past four years, those externalities have become increasingly serious. By shifting its focus from quantity to quality, China is, in effect acknowledging an increasingly urgent need to address the negative repercussions of rapid growth head on.

Trade policy is the most immediate item on the quality agenda. The first meeting of the newly established strategic economic dialog with the United States is now less than two weeks away -- set for December 14-15 in Beijing. Led by US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, a high-level US delegation will not want to go away empted handed when it comes to coping with a large and ever-widening bilateral trade deficit with the China -- estimated at $202 billion in 2005 and at least $225 billion in 2006, and equal to fully 25% of America's record multilateral trade deficit. Paulson has already set the stage for a very important shift in the US-China bilateral trade discussions -- attempting to broaden out the debate from a single-minded fixation on the currency issue. That's not to say the US delegation won't put pressure on China to accelerate the pace of renminbi revaluation, but it will also push for more Chinese progress on the equally important matters of financial sector reforms and protection of intellectual property rights （IPR）.

What I found last week in Beijing is that the Chinese may well be willing to move more aggressively on the IPR issue than has been the case in the past. There is a key reason for this shift: Inasmuch as China's economic prowess has moved rapidly up the value chain in recent years -- from low-value-added items such as toys and textiles to increasingly high-value-added technology products -- there is a growing consensus forming within the Chinese leadership that IPR protection is now in its best interest, as well. As one senior official put it best to me last week, \"Since the China of tomorrow will be more about innovation and knowledge-based breakthroughs, we need to protect our own IPR.\" This speaks of a China that is now putting increasing value on the quality of its intellectual capital rather than on the quantity potential of its mass-production platform. OECD data underscore how far China has come in investing in the basic research underpinnings of intellectual property: In 2006, it overtook Japan and stood second only to the United States in the global research and development spending sweepstakes. Little wonder China now wants to protect its own proprietary knowledge base.

Interestingly enough, I saw a real-time example of what China can do on the IPR front when it puts its mind to the effort. Like most airports these days, Beijing International Airport has become something of an indoor shopping mall. Notwithstanding opportunities to make last-minute purchases of Chinese arts and crafts, the crowds were biggest at the Beijing 2008 kiosk, where travelers were fighting over newly minted souvenirs from the upcoming Olympics. What I found most interesting in these products is that they are all \"officially licensed\" -- in many cases, complete with a numbered and laser-tagged authentication certificate designed to foil counterfeiting. The Chinese have long complained how difficult it is to enforce IPR protection in a nation where factories and distribution facilities can spring up overnight. Try finding official Beijing 2008 souvenirs in China's fabled open-air markets that contain knock-offs of a wide range of Western products. Let me assure you -- you can't. When the Chinese put themselves to the enforcement task, they can accomplish almost anything. A recent anti-piracy effort -- the so-called \"100-Day Campaign,\" running from July 15 to October 25, 2006 -- is a high-profile example of China upping the ante in this area. There is a great opportunity for a breakthrough on the all-important and long-contentious IPR issue at the upcoming US-China strategic economic dialog -- an outcome that could pull the rug out from under the increasingly vocal protectionists in the US Congress.

I also found a China more willing to focus on upgrading the quality of its manufacturing technology. The degradation of the Chinese environment has now reached a serious threshold: Fully seven of the ten most polluted cities in the world are in China, according to World Bank statistics. Moreover, China leads the world in water pollution by a wide margin -- emitting three times as many organic water pollutants as the number two polluter -- the United States, whose economy is five and a half times the size of China's. At the same time, Chinese production is woefully inefficient when it comes to reliance on energy and other raw materials. For example, China currently requires about twice as much oil per unit of GDP as the rest of the world, according to the International Energy Association. The recently enacted 11th Five-Year Plan has a stated target of reducing China's oil per unit of GDP by 4% a year, or 20% over the 2006-10 period. At the same time, the government wants to move away from a \"commodity-heavy\" growth model that gobbles up outsize portions of base metals and other raw materials. Chinese leaders -- especially those at the National Development and Reform Commission who still guide the national planning process -- feel this can best be accomplished by shifting away from rapidly growing commodity-intensive fixed investment toward more of a \"commodity-lite\" growth model centered increasingly on private consumption. Whether it's curtailing pollution or cutting back a voracious appetite for energy and other industrial materials, I sensed a heightened awareness in official Beijing to tackle this important aspect of the quality problem head-on.

I noticed a similar approach toward the quality of Chinese bank lending. Interestingly enough, there is a clear consensus amongst Chinese banking regulators as well as senior banking officials that another round of nonperforming loans is inevitable once the economy slows（see also Wendy Dobson and Anil Kashyap, “The Contradiction in China’s Gradualist Banking Reforms,” prepared for the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity, September 2006）. Both China’s regulators and bankers felt that the excesses of the current investment boom -- with fixed investment climbing toward the unheard of and worrisome 50% threshold -- have become a breeding ground for new NPLs. China very much needs to increase the quality of its capital allocation process. Reforms, according to the Chinese I met with last week, are the only means to accomplish this -- especially reforms that inject greater discipline into the investment and loan approval process. The imposition of administrative edicts curtailing fixed investment in a number of overheated sectors is helpful in this regard, as is a new effort aimed at increasing the selectivity of foreign direct investment. In both cases, however, the administrative policies are only band-aids until the establishment of a robust market-driven system of capital allocation. Equally encouraging are recent public listings of the large Chinese banks, which should inject market-driven incentives into an increasingly commercialized bank lending business. In the end, however, the centralization of a still highly fragmented Chinese banking system is essential in order to instill a rigorous, commercially-viable lending culture. With a China slowdown likely to come sooner rather than later, I sensed a new urgency in Beijing in dealing with this critical aspect of the quality problem.

Finally, I picked up a subtle, but important, shift in China's overall attitude toward reform. Last spring, there were visible signs of a worrisome pushback against one key element of the reform process -- the opportunity for foreign multinational corporations to take strategic stakes in Chinese enterprises. There was a gathering concern in some quarters that foreigners were buying precious State assets on the cheap -- especially as a surging Chinese stock market was quick to inflate the market value of foreign-acquired stakes. According to insiders involved in China's financial sector reforms, those fears have since subsided, as the pro-reform faction in the senior Chinese leadership appears to have recently won out in a struggle with Party conservatives. A potentially worrisome dilution in the quality of reforms has been avoided as a result.

In the end, the quality of the growth experience is the ultimate arbiter of its sustainability. China has elected to go for quantity since the onset of the current reforms back in 1978. It has had remarkable success in staying the course. But as China comes of age, it is only natural that such an approach change, with greater attention placed on the quality of the economic growth outcome. There is, undoubtedly, an important tradeoff between these two dimensions of the growth experience. A new emphasis on quality probably means that China will have to compromise on the quantity front. The good news is that as a 10% growth machine -- and recently well in excess of that -- that's a luxury China can well afford and seems willing to accept. Contrary to widespread perceptions, China doesn't need 10-11% economic growth to ensure social stability. Its newly enacted Five-Year Plan, which is tilted toward meaningful improvement on the quality front, calls for \"just\" 7.5% average GDP growth through 2010.

An external shock is the only real stumbling block I see in this potential realignment in the Chinese growth model. A US-led shortfall of global growth or a politically-inspired outbreak of Washington-led protectionism are the biggest risks in that regard -- the former providing a temporary setback and the latter a more worrisome systemic risk （see my 1 December dispatch, “Unprepared in Beijing”）. But barring those possibilities, the China I saw last week seems more than willing to pay the price of slower growth and opt increasingly for quality over quantity. That's outstanding news for China and for the world as a whole.


来源：摩根斯坦利，2006.12.4，作者：Stephen S. Roach