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Domestic Demand Surged In The First Quarter And Investment Rose.

2008/4/29 17:14:00 29

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"The trade surplus is falling sharply, and the consumption is relatively stable. Where do you say the present economic growth is coming from?

How did inflation go up? "

In April 27th, after the thirteenth report of "China economic observation" at the China Economic Research Center of Peking University, Professor Song Guoqing of the China Economic Research Center threw out such a problem.

In Song Guoqing's calculations, nominal GDP grew by 21.6% in the first quarter of 2008, the highest level since 1996.

This happened in the case of "the surplus in goods trade decreased by 17.8% compared with the same period last year (in Renminbi), and there was little change in consumption".

Therefore, Song Guoqing's conclusion is: "the growth rate of investment may increase substantially, and domestic demand will increase sharply."

That is to say, the total demand in China is still very strong.

At the same time, according to the prediction of the 15 institutions, the "Langrun forecast" based on the weighted average of the predicted indicators shows that the GDP in the second quarter of this year is 10.5% and CPI is 7.8%.

The actual value of the two indicators in the first quarter was 10.6% and 8% respectively.

According to "Lang run forecast", investment, consumption, and export of the three indicators, investment and consumption change little, but expected exports will decline from 19.5% in the first quarter to 19.5%.

As an important member of the "currency pie", Song Guoqing said in an exclusive interview with this newspaper after the meeting, "in the case of falling external demand, the total demand should drop by 5 points over the same period, but the actual situation is rising. What does it mean?

It can only show that domestic demand is still strong. "

In Song's logic chain, domestic demand includes two parts: consumption and investment.

According to his calculations, consumption did not change much from 13.6% to 19% in the first quarter of last year, while the "other", which included a favorable balance of services and fixed asset investment and inventories, jumped sharply from 9.2% in the first quarter of last year to 33.7% in the first quarter of this year.

Therefore, Song Guoqing made a judgement: "the growth rate of investment is likely to increase substantially."

According to official statistics, the investment in fixed assets in the first quarter of this year increased by 24.6% over the same period. Many people in the industry believe that if the price factor is deducted, the actual growth rate will decline.

Song Guoqing explained to our reporter, "my actual growth rate here is not in the general sense of paper, but in the" nominal growth rate of real investment ", which does not involve price factors, but emphasizes the actual process.

The expansion of investment has also proved the reason for the favorable balance.

"If you invest in one high, you import more."

Song said, "investment and investment in fixed assets are very close. The high import growth over the past few months is consistent with the high growth rate of investment."

Song also believes that the recent rise in the international price of bulk commodities has occurred in the case of weak demand in the US, and the important reason is "China's investment and import growth."

Lu Feng, another professor of Beijing Economic Research Center, agrees with the above view.

He believes that the international price increase is largely due to China's domestic demand. We should pay attention to understanding and coping with current inflation from the perspective of domestic aggregate demand and currency.

In view of this, Song Guoqing believes that controlling inflation requires controlling total demand and controlling the growth rate of MS (MS = foreign net assets + domestic credit).

In Song's view, MS has a slight decline now, but it is "unstable". "The risk of high aggregate demand and high inflation continues for a long time is still great."

At the same time, according to some concerns in the market, if the austerity policy is overdone and the economic growth rate falls too much, the unemployment problem will deteriorate.

Song Guoqing said that inflation is not conducive to solving the problem of unemployment. Inflation, high unemployment rate and economic growth indicators will only be worse than countries with low inflation.

However, many economists expressed their suspicions on the high growth of GDP in the first quarter. The reason is that the actual growth rate of investment and net exports in the "three carriages" has decreased compared with last year, and only the consumption growth is steady.

The research on Ha Jiming, chief economist of CICC, shows that in the first quarter, the real investment growth rate (nominal growth rate deducts the price of investment goods) is only 16%, which is down compared with last year. "The risk of economic downturn is still worth noting."

The fact remains to be seen.

Although economists have different judgments on the causes of inflation, there is basically a similar consensus on Governance: rationalizing the price mechanism.

Song Guoqing believes that taking into account the risk of rising grain prices and low prices are not conducive to supply and other issues, we need to straighten out the price structure as soon as possible.

"If inflation goes down, we will straighten out the price mechanism quickly."

Huang Ji Ji, Center for agricultural policy research, Chinese Academy of Sciences