Zhang Monan On China'S Structural Balance

After more than 30 years of rapid growth, China's economy is returning from the miracle of growth to the normal development, and the structure has also experienced a difficult rebalancing. The current account surplus has dropped from 10% of GDP in 2007 to 2.1% in 2013, down 0.5 percentage points from 2012, the lowest level in 9 years. In the three quarter of 2014, China's current account surplus was US $81 billion 500 million, the deficit of capital and financial items was US $81 billion 600 million, and the balance of payments account tended to be balanced.

The balance of payments has both active and passive factors. In the past two years, the developed countries have taken the lead in international trade competition by "Reindustrialization", while some developing countries and regions have become a new position to accept international manufacturing transfer with a lower cost advantage than China.

Economic recovery in the US, Japan and Europe showed signs of "decoupling" from China's exports. Since 2013, the economic recovery dynamics of the developed economies have generally increased, and the economies of various countries have been adjusted to varying degrees compared with the original growth pattern. The recovery of the US manufacturing sector has led to a substantial recovery in the real economy. In 2011~2012, the average growth rate of manufacturing industry reached 4.3%, which exceeded the 2002~2007 average level of 4.1%. The average growth rate of durable goods manufacturing industry reached 8%, far exceeding the average 2002~2007 level of 5.7%. As China's domestic factor costs rose and the RMB continued to rise sharply, the market share of Chinese goods in the United States began to decline. Since 2011, the proportion of Chinese goods in the US imports has decreased by 2 percentage points, showing signs of "decoupling". This trend also occurs between China and other developed economies. In 2013, the proportion of Chinese products exported to traditional developed markets decreased from 40% in the previous year to 37.6%, and this trend continued in 2014.

The competitive situation of alternative trade is getting stronger and stronger. The trend of labor-intensive manufacturing industry transferring to China has begun to slow down. Vietnam, India, Mexico and Eastern Europe and other countries and regions have become a new position to accept the industrial transfer of industrial developed countries with lower cost advantages than China. ASEAN manufacturing, India manufacturing, and Mexico manufacturing began to replace supply with China with cheaper cost elements.

TPP+TTIP+PSA is changing the world Trade pattern And order. At present, the situation of international industrial competition and cooperation is undergoing major changes. The trans Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP), the trans the Atlantic trade and investment partnership agreement (TTIP) and the multilateral service industry agreement (PSA), which are dominated by the US and Europe, have three major characteristics: first, zero tariff; two, employment and green environmental negotiations; and three, regional trade liberalization. New trade barriers pose a serious challenge to China. In addition to traditional trade remedy, trade protectionism is hidden in the form of state assistance and government procurement, which poses a new challenge to China's exports.

China is also experiencing a "rebalancing" between investment and consumption. A very important factor in the downward pressure on macro-economy is the continuous downward movement of fixed asset investment growth. The growth rate from 33% in 2009 has dropped to 16.1% in September 2014, and the pulling effect of investment on GDP has dropped from 8.1% in 2009 to 4.2% in 2013. On the one hand, from the perspective of capacity cycle, China is now digesting the capacity of large-scale investment release in 2010~2011, and the extrusion of real estate and local investment and financing platform to the real economy persists. The overcapacity industry has expanded from traditional industries such as steel, nonferrous metals, building materials, chemical industry, shipbuilding to wind power, photovoltaic, carbon fiber and other emerging industries. The capacity utilization rate of many industries is less than 75%. The negative output gap shows that capacity is relatively slow, which restricts the growth of new investment.

on the other hand, Investment rate The decline is directly related to the decline in capital formation rate. We use investment output elasticity to measure investment efficiency (the commonly used incremental capital output rate ICOR of investment efficiency), which indicates the capital stock needed to increase the total output of the unit, that is, the total value of ICOR= fixed capital formation /GDP increases, the higher the value is, the lower the efficiency of investment output. The results show that during the period 1996~2012, the average incremental capital output rate of China is about 3.9. Compared with the developed countries in similar growth stages, the ICOR value in China is obviously higher. In particular, with the actual financing interest rate and the cost of production factors rising periodically, the scissors gap of industrial and agricultural products is gradually being compensated under the imbalance of supply and demand. The profit of industrial enterprises may become thinner and thinner, and the high investment rate has been difficult to continue.

From the perspective of consumption, China is becoming the engine of global consumption growth with the expansion of the middle income group. In 2013, China consumes more than Japan, becoming the second largest consumer country in the world, and the total consumption is second only to that of the United States. China's imports are mainly intermediate products. Over the past 10 years, imports of iron ore and other raw materials have increased substantially. However, the proportion of imported consumer goods has begun to increase in recent years, and the proportion of final products of mixed use such as automobiles and computers has also increased significantly, which will help the global economic balance.

China and western developed countries economic gap The bottleneck of China's economic transformation and upgrading is closely related to its backward position in the international division of labor. In the future, with the increase of per capita income, consumption structure and upgrading of industrial structure and transformation of production mode, China's demand for capital equipment and business services in the world, especially in developed markets, will continue to grow substantially. It is estimated that in the next 10 years, the annual growth rate of China's high-tech market will reach 20%~40%. According to our calculations, if the United States relaxes its export restrictions to China and maintains a market share of 18.3% of the total imports of similar products in China, the export of high-tech products to China can reach US $about 60000000000, which is conducive not only to China's industrial upgrading and technological innovation, but also to the global technology diffusion and technology investment of developed countries such as the United States.