(China Focus Face to Face) After GDP has exceeded one hundred billion yuan, how will China's economy deal with "growth troubles"?
China News Service, Beijing, February 5th, title: After GDP exceeds one hundred billion yuan, how does the Chinese economy deal with "growth troubles"?
——Interview with Sheng Laiyun, Deputy Director of the National Bureau of Statistics of China
China News Agency reporter Wang Enbo
A few days ago, the National Bureau of Statistics of China announced China's economic data for 2020.
Under the epidemic situation, China's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.3% last year, and the total economic volume surpassed the 100 trillion yuan (RMB, the same below) mark.
What information is behind this brilliant transcript worth paying attention to?
Will China's economy continue to recover steadily in 2021?
Sheng Laiyun, deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics, accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency "China Focus Face-to-face" for an authoritative interpretation.
Excerpts from the interview are as follows:
China News Agency reporter: China's economic data for the whole year of 2020 has been released. How do you evaluate this report card?
Sheng Laiyun:
As you said, this is a very beautiful report card.
My evaluation is: better than expected, hard-won, and world attention.
First of all, from the perspective of major indicators such as growth, employment, inflation, and balance of payments reflecting the operation of the macro economy, they are all better than expected.
In the first quarter, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, China's GDP growth was -6.8%.
After the data came out, all parties were shocked and felt that the impact of the new crown epidemic was very large.
At that time, some institutions and scholars felt that it was very good to achieve economic growth throughout the year.
But as a result, GDP grew by 2.3% throughout the year, with a total of 101.6 trillion yuan, breaking through the one-hundred-billion mark.
The employment situation is better than expected.
Last year, 11.86 million new jobs were created, and the unemployment rate surveyed (in cities and towns across the country) averaged 5.6% for the entire 12 months, which was below the expected target of "6% (around)".
From the perspective of inflation indicators, the trend is higher than expected, which is also better than expected.
At the beginning of last year, affected by food prices such as live pigs, the consumer price index (CPI) reached a maximum of 5.4%. At that time, everyone was worried about whether there would be inflation or even "stagflation."
However, from the actual operating results, as the growth rate of live pig prices fell, the consumer price index for the whole year gradually fell.
The annual average is 2.5%, which is below the annual target of "3.5% (around)".
The balance of payments indicators are even better than expected.
A variety of circumstances support China’s export performance in 2020 that is significantly better than expected. The annual import and export growth of 1.9%, from negative to positive; export growth of 4%.
There is another indicator I am more optimistic about-FDI (the actual use of foreign capital). Last year, China's FDI increased by 6.2%, nearly 1 trillion yuan.
This data can be highly concerned because it shows that despite the great changes in the international situation, foreign capital is still very optimistic about the Chinese economy and the Chinese market.
The second key word is "hard-won."
First of all, the sudden impact of the new crown epidemic at the beginning of last year caused a 20-day shutdown of the Chinese economy.
With such a large country shut down for 20 days, one can imagine the impact on the economy.
The second big shock is the deep recession of the world economy.
Especially since the last round of the international financial crisis, the world economy has been on the verge of recession, and the impact of the epidemic has increased downward pressure.
In this context, the demand of countries around the world has dropped sharply, unilateralism and protectionism prevail, and the external challenges facing China have increased.
The third impact is that some superpowers are going against globalization, and they have imposed a full range of suppression on all aspects of the Chinese economy, including economic and trade restrictions, and even used state power to suppress the development of Chinese technology companies.
These three huge shocks can be said to be unprecedented, and the three shocks overlap and influence each other.
In the face of such a huge impact, the Party Central Committee has maintained its determination and decisive decision-making, scientifically coordinated epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, and accelerated the resumption of work and production.
Especially after the first quarter, the "six guarantees" policy was introduced in time, and the macroeconomic policy hedging was increased, which promoted the sustained and stable recovery of the national economy.
It is not easy to look back over the course of the past year.
It is hard to come by, but hard to succeed.
The third key word is "world attention."
Among the major economies with a global economic aggregate of more than US$1 trillion, preliminary judgment is that China may be the only country that has achieved positive growth.
Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that this report card is "the world's attention".
Data map: Beijing residents go shopping.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Sheng Jiapeng
China News Agency reporter: You mentioned that China's economy faced three severe shocks last year. The reason why China was able to resist these shocks and successfully achieved a "restart", where did this resilience come from?
Sheng Laiyun:
Looking back on the performance of the national economy in the past year, it has indeed demonstrated the strong shock resistance, strong self-repair ability and strong resilience and flexibility of the Chinese economy.
First, the resilience of economic stability and recovery comes from the solid material foundation and production capacity accumulated over 40 years of reform and opening up.
From the perspective of industrial production, China is the only country in the world that has all the industrial categories in the United Nations Industrial Classification. The industrial system is complete and the supporting capabilities are strong. Therefore, under the impact of the epidemic, the production of anti-epidemic materials such as masks can quickly be effectively organized to form a production capacity. To meet the needs of domestic and foreign anti-epidemic.
Secondly, resilience comes from the domestic ultra-large-scale market and the rising trend of consumption upgrades.
On the one hand, there is a strong market scale advantage, and on the other hand, there is a trend of consumption upgrading. (Chinese people) marginal propensity to consume is increasing, and consumption power is in a period of release after a certain amount of accumulation.
Therefore, when we face the shock, there is market demand, and production is recovering, we can support the stable economic recovery from the demand side.
In the third aspect, resilience comes from the new competitive advantages created by structural reforms and transformation and upgrading.
The reason why China's economy is able to withstand the three major shocks is inseparable from the resolute implementation of the new development concepts in various regions and departments since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the promotion of structural reforms and transformation and upgrading, the enhancement of economic shock resistance and the creation of new competitive advantages. of.
Fourth, resilience also comes from the institutional advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the precise control of the Party Central Committee.
In the fight against the epidemic and the resumption of work and production, we have fully felt the ability of socialism to concentrate its efforts on major tasks and to mobilize resources and allocate resources.
While managing the economy, we constantly improve macro-control.
China has accumulated rich experience in macro-control in recent years.
We not only emphasize counter-cyclical regulation, but also precise regulation, and give full play to the invisible hands of the market and the visible hands of the government to allocate resources and improve the efficiency of economic operation.
Sheng Laiyun, deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics, accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency "China Focus Face to Face".
Photo by China News Agency reporter Jiang Qiming
China News Agency reporter: What has China's successful economic recovery brought to the world?
Sheng Laiyun:
First of all, China's economy has taken the lead in resuming work and production, and has achieved a stable recovery, which has strengthened the confidence of the people of all countries in the fight against the epidemic and the confidence in promoting the recovery of their own economies.
China has accumulated some experience in these two areas, and it has provided Chinese experience for the people of the world to resume work and production and promote economic recovery under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control.
Second, China's economy has taken the lead in recovering and recovering steadily, and has made great contributions to the development of the world economy and the fight against the epidemic.
Since the second quarter of last year, China has exported a large number of anti-epidemic materials to various countries to meet domestic needs while meeting the needs of people around the world.
According to China Customs data, China exported 224.2 billion masks last year.
If China’s population is excluded, it is roughly equivalent to 40 people per person in other countries in the world.
In addition, China has played an important leading role in delaying and reducing the world economic recession and the economic decline of some other countries.
In particular, China's imports have played a very important stabilizing role in the economies of some countries.
In 2020, China's imports to ASEAN exceeded US$300 billion for the first time, reaching US$300.9 billion, an increase of US$18 billion over 2019.
This shows to a certain extent that China's demand has boosted its exports and helped its economic stability and recovery.
So from these two levels, China’s development is actually a boon to the world economy.
Our development will bring new impetus to the world economy, rather than threats and challenges.
Data map: Busy workers on the mask production line in Chengdu, Sichuan.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Liu Zhongjun
China News Agency reporter: All parties are relatively optimistic about China's economic situation in 2021. Some market institutions predict that China's economic growth this year may be close to double digits. What do you think of this judgment? We often say that China's economic growth must be maintained within a "reasonable range." For this year's Chinese economy, what kind of growth is considered "reasonable"?
Sheng Laiyun:
Recently, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other international organizations have issued forecast reports, giving positive comments on China's economic development in 2021, and given very optimistic forecasts.
This fully demonstrates the confidence of these institutions in the stable development of China's economy.
The reasons why they gave (Chinese economy) a positive evaluation are mainly reflected in four aspects.
One is because China's economic recovery is improving.
For example, in the fourth quarter of last year, China's GDP (year-on-year) increased by 6.5%, and the added value of industrial enterprises above designated size (year-on-year) increased by 7.1%, both of which were higher than the same period in the fourth quarter of 2019.
There is a view that China's economy has basically returned to normal from the fourth quarter, so they are optimistic about this trend and think that this development trend will continue in 2021.
The second reason is that China's epidemic prevention and control are effective and support the development of consumption and service industries to a certain extent.
Although the current epidemic has not been completely eliminated, and there is a scattered situation, all parties generally believe that the impact of the epidemic this year must be significantly lower than the previous year.
In this case, China has experience in fighting the epidemic, so it will be good for related industries, especially some contact service industries.
The third reason is that the international situation is also improving.
The world economic development forecasts given by several major international organizations generally believe that it will rebound by more than 4% in 2021, and the United Nations is expected to rebound by more than 5%.
They all gave positive judgments on the recovery of the global economy based on a low base.
The world economy is recovering. In particular, the stimulus policies of some countries will not be withdrawn anytime soon. To a certain extent, they will also actively support China's external demand.
Another important reason is that the reason why everyone expects the data to be higher is because of the base effect.
In the first quarter of last year, China's economic growth rate was -6.8%, and there was a "big hole".
A low base will significantly increase the year-on-year growth rate.
But I want to emphasize that we must not be overly optimistic and we must remain sober.
The extent of the influence of these causes still needs to be carefully analyzed, and the influence mechanism of some factors still needs to be accurately judged.
For example, the epidemic situation is now in a scattered state. We have experience in controlling the epidemic, but its impact still exists.
The international environment must also be carefully analyzed.
The world economy in 2021 may be significantly better than in 2020, but the epidemic is still spreading globally.
Everyone has great expectations for vaccines, but the supply capacity and quality of vaccines, whether they can meet the needs of people all over the world, and whether they can be evenly distributed are issues worthy of observation.
The base problem cannot be overestimated.
Some institutions expect China's economic growth rate in the first quarter of 2021 to exceed 18% or even reach 20%, because they believe (last year and this year) the two-year average growth rate should be similar to potential productivity.
In fact, this simple calculation is not very scientific, because some economic aggregate losses cannot be made up.
Therefore (forecasting) still has to be based on accurate and objective statistics.
Sheng Laiyun, deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics, accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency "China Focus Face to Face".
Photo by China News Agency reporter Jiang Qiming
China News Agency reporter: The Central Economic Work Conference pointed out that there are many uncertainties in the changes in the epidemic and the external environment, and the foundation for China's economic recovery is not yet solid. What do you think is the most important risk in China's economic operation this year? How should we deal with the uncertainty that this brings?
Sheng Laiyun:
In addition to the uncertainty of the epidemic and international environmental changes, there are two other issues or risks that deserve attention.
First, the difficulties of the real economy have not fundamentally changed.
Although China's real economy has withstood the shock, it has suffered some impacts, especially the production and operation of some small, medium and micro enterprises.
From last year's data and recent indicators, there are still some issues that require attention in the real economy, whether in terms of production and operation, debt issues, or profit.
For example, the increase in accounts receivable of enterprises in the real economy requires attention.
At the end of December last year, the accounts receivable of industrial enterprises above designated size (year-on-year) increased by 15.1%, maintaining double-digit growth for eight consecutive months, indicating that capital pressure is relatively high.
Moreover, the financing difficulties and expensive financing problems reflected in the real economy are still prominent and have not been fundamentally resolved.
In addition, rising raw material prices have increased production costs and squeezed corporate profits, especially small and micro enterprises.
Another point is that the problem of insufficient effective demand still exists. Although the economic recovery has eased at the same time, it has not been alleviated fundamentally.
Judging from the situation in 2020, there are some shortcomings in terms of investment and consumption.
In terms of investment, manufacturing investment is still showing negative growth.
The overall investment growth of last year was 2.9%, but the manufacturing investment growth was -2.2%.
The growth rate of private investment is still relatively low. The annual private investment growth rate was only 1.0%, which was 1.9 percentage points lower than the average investment growth rate.
In terms of consumption, the annual growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods was -3.9%, which is the only major macro indicator that has not turned positive.
Taking these aspects together, although China's economy is recovering steadily, the foundation for recovery is not yet solid.
In 2021, we need to continue to consolidate the foundation for economic recovery, and in particular, we must conscientiously implement the spirit of the Central Economic Work Conference and the deployment of eight key tasks.
On the one hand, we must adhere to the general tone of seeking progress while maintaining stability and maintain policy continuity and stability.
The policy should not make a "swift turn", but must increase the relief efforts of enterprises to lay a solid foundation for stable development.
On the other hand, it is necessary to "advance" on the basis of "stability", promote the expansion of economic power, actively meet the requirements of the "14th Five-Year" plan, and strengthen economic innovation in accordance with the requirements of promoting high-quality economic development and building a new development pattern. Deepen supply-side structural reforms, strengthen demand-side management, and expand reform and opening up.
On the basis of consolidating stable development, strengthen the momentum of stable economic recovery, and make a good start and start to build a new development pattern.
Data map: A port in Ningbo, Zhejiang.
Photo by Qiu Wenxiong
Reporter from China News Service: One of the highlights of China's economy in 2020 is that the total GDP exceeded the 100 trillion yuan mark for the first time. Prior to this, China's per capita GDP also reached US$10,000. Some people say that this means that China's economy has "grew up", so how should China develop after "grow up"? Are there some "growth troubles" in this process?
Sheng Laiyun:
China's economy is now growing up and growing faster.
The total GDP of China was 10 trillion yuan in 2000, 40 trillion yuan in 2010, 50 trillion yuan in 2012, and one hundred billion yuan last year, reaching a new level.
In addition to the total economic volume, many of China's products and total infrastructure are among the best in the world.
This has something to do with the large population base of China, but the total amount reflects the comprehensive strength of a country.
Growth is something to be happy about, but it is indeed accompanied by "growth troubles."
From the perspective of foreign conditions, it is mainly because the international environment is changing, and the attitude of foreign countries to China's economic growth is changing.
China's economic aggregate is expanding and its share in the world economy is also increasing.
In 2000, China's total economy accounted for 3.6% of the world's total. In 2019, it has exceeded 16%. It is initially estimated to be around 17% in 2020, further increasing.
As the status of the Chinese economy in the world rises, its influence is also expanding.
In a changing world, countries have different values and perspectives on how to view the rise of China's economy, but it is obvious that some superpowers have a growing sense of anxiety and crisis, and their mentality is very complicated.
At the same time, the world economy is also affected by many factors.
Before the sharp recession in 2020, the world economy continued to grow slowly, globalization was facing challenges, anti-globalization trends were on the rise, and unilateralism prevailed.
Under this structure, the environment facing China's economy is becoming more and more complex, and the external environment and risk challenges increase.
From an internal point of view, the Chinese economy is in a critical period of structural adjustment, a critical period of transformation and upgrading, and a period of prominent social contradictions.
China's total GDP has exceeded 100 trillion yuan, and its per capita GDP has exceeded 10,000 US dollars. It has now entered a stage of structural adjustment and transformation and upgrading.
According to international experience, this stage is generally accompanied by sudden social conflicts and widening income distribution gaps, and faces the challenge of the middle-income trap.
Since the structural problems of the Chinese economy have not been fundamentally resolved for a long time, the contradictions of imbalance and insufficient development are still more prominent, and the cyclical and structural contradictions are intertwined, which brings great challenges to transformation, upgrading and high-quality development.
The internal and external challenges that China faces are still great, but these problems are all "growth troubles", and some are new problems and new challenges faced after this stage of development.
As China's economy "grows up", everyone's expectations of you have increased, and they should assume greater responsibilities.
After "growing up", it is hoped that (China's economy) will not only achieve large-scale expansion, but also improve the quality of development and sustainability. Therefore, this trouble is also a "happy trouble".
Regarding how to deal with the troubles in the development process, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China gave a full layout, and proposed to base on the new development stage, implement the new development concept, and build a new development pattern.
This is an overall and systematic strategic plan, the only way to guide the high-quality development of China's economy in the future, and a fundamental measure to deal with and solve the "growth troubles".
China News Agency reporter: The National Bureau of Statistics recently released the final verified GDP data for 2019, and the total GDP has decreased from the preliminary calculation. Some netizens questioned whether the reduction of the 2019 data is to make the growth figures for 2020 look better. Can you answer this question? At the same time, would you please briefly introduce how China's GDP data is calculated?
Sheng Laiyun:
Not long ago, we released the final verification data of China's GDP in 2019, which was 435 billion yuan less than the express report released at the beginning of 2020, and the growth rate dropped by 0.1%.
But the adjustment and revision is a normal institutional arrangement, unlike some netizens ridiculed, it is to increase the GDP growth rate in 2020.
The revision only lowered the total GDP in 2019 by 435 billion yuan, which has little effect on the growth rate of the total GDP in the trillions.
The reason it is said to be an institutional arrangement is that the accounting system of the National Bureau of Statistics has been made public online, which stipulates that China's GDP accounting must go through two stages.
The first stage is at the beginning of the year. For example, at the beginning of 2020, the number of express reports for 2019 will be released. At the end of the year, we will release the final verification data of the previous year's GDP.
GDP revision is also an international practice. For example, the United States revises more frequently, four times a year, and Japan three times.
The second stage GDP verification data is necessary because it has more basic data needed for accounting.
Therefore, the final verification data is more accurate and objective, because the information it possesses is more comprehensive.
A final verification of GDP data is carried out in the spirit of seeking truth from facts.
(Finish)