On March 5, Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council delivered a government work report, clarifying the goals of this year's work.
Among them, there is a lot of attention: this year's GDP growth rate is expected to be about 5.5%, the deficit rate is planned to be around 2.8%, and the central government's transfer payments to local governments will increase by about 1.5 trillion yuan.
Under the keynote of "steady words at the head and seeking progress while maintaining stability", how will the economy make steady progress this year?
How to evaluate the 5.5% economic growth target?
What are the priorities for fiscal and monetary policy?
What are the trends in real estate market regulation reflected in the statement about real estate?
How is the employment situation this year and how is it related to the overall GDP target?
Focusing on these issues, on the evening of March 5, the Beijing News Shell Finance held the "2022 National Two Sessions Economic Policy Forum-Representative members explain the government work report in detail, how to stabilize the Chinese economy", connecting the National People's Congress, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Public Economics He discussed with Liu Xiaobing, Dean of the School of Management, Xia Fei, Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and President of Guangxi University of Finance and Economics, and Zhang Liqun, Researcher of the Macroeconomic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council.
Zhang Liqun: China's economy will bottom out this year
Regarding the GDP growth target of 5.5% proposed in this year's government work report, Zhang Liqun commented that it is "positive and stable".
He analyzed that the deficit rate is a very important indicator to observe the strength of fiscal policy from a macro perspective. This year’s deficit rate is planned to be around 2.8%, which is lower than last year’s arrangement of around 3.2%. increase or decrease of the indicator.
"The government work report specifically states that the effectiveness of fiscal policy will increase this year; in addition, certain state-owned financial institutions and franchised institutions have legally handed over the profits they have accumulated in recent years and transferred funds for budget stabilization. This is an additional income item. The scale of fiscal expenditure this year is The expansion of more than 2 trillion yuan over last year still reflects the principle of positivity and efficiency improvement." Zhang Liqun said that with the joint support of a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy, China's economy will show a basic trend of bottoming out and rebounding this year. The trend should be a smooth start and a quarterly recovery.
The Chinese economy is likely to start a new growth cycle from low to high.
The government work report also proposes to have more comprehensive overall planning and arrangements for stable growth and green and low carbon.
Zhang Liqun said that the overall stability of my country's supply chain this year has a relatively reliable guarantee.
China's strong production and supply capacity will ensure stable growth this year and the needs of all aspects of the sustained economic recovery.
my country's power generation capacity ranks first in the world, and the production capacity of steel and other industries ranks first in the world. These will be released more fully this year. We will also promote energy conservation and emission reduction through emission management.
"Double carbon goals and stable growth goals will be better combined, and the supply of bulk commodities will have a more reliable guarantee, which can not only support the continued recovery of economic growth, but also ensure that the price level is generally stable." The trend will be curbed.
Liu Xiaobing: Fiscal policy must identify the point of force, and the use of financial funds must be transparent
Regarding the arrangement of this year's deficit rate, Liu Xiaobing believes that "it is not much lower (than last year)", and the trend of fiscal policy has not fundamentally changed.
He pays more attention to whether the use of financial funds is in compliance with the regulations, the efficiency and effect of use, and hopes to see the real use of financial funds and use them wisely.
This year, my country still implements a strong tax and fee support policy. It is expected that this year's tax rebate will be about 2.5 trillion yuan, the largest scale in history.
In this regard, Liu Xiaobing said that the space for tax reduction and fee reduction may be shrinking now.
Another space that can be considered is social security. According to the current payment rate and the increasingly transparent payment base, the pressure on enterprises to pay social security is still relatively high.
As for taxation, the current reduction of value-added tax and consumption tax is a turnover tax, and the actual impact on enterprises is not very large. To really help enterprises, it may still be necessary to start with income tax.
"In addition, it should be noted that while reducing taxes and fees, while increasing expenditure, the fiscal gap may become larger and larger. It is recommended to do a specific study, and then judge what to do with the policy of tax reduction and fee reduction, so that the effect will be better. A little," he said.
How to address the fiscal gap?
Liu Xiaobing believes that we should start with throttling, rather than placing more hope on open source.
He further reminded that the general way to fill the fiscal gap is to issue bonds, but debts must always be repaid. When dealing with an economic downturn, we may not think so much and continue to issue bonds.
If no consideration is given to how to repay these debts, ultimately these debts will be borne by the entire society.
Therefore, the focus is to improve the efficiency of the use of funds.
Xia Fei: Both ends of the supply side and the demand side make efforts to ensure stable GDP growth
When it comes to the expected target of GDP growth this year, Xia Fei believes that to promote this target, it is necessary to exert efforts on both the supply side and the demand side.
On the supply side, specific measures include further promoting high-quality development, adjusting industrial structure, strengthening industry, and technological innovation.
On the demand side, the first is investment demand; the second is consumer demand. The premise of increasing consumption is to have higher income, which needs to be guaranteed by employment; the third is export demand. In the new situation of the epidemic this year, how to continue to maintain export demand is the direction to strive for.
The reasonable housing demand of the masses is also a part of the consumer demand.
Judging from this year's government work report, the basic principle and direction of "housing, not speculating," has not changed. At the same time, it emphasizes "continuing to ensure the housing needs of the masses" and "supporting the commercial housing market to better meet the reasonable housing needs of buyers."
Xia Fei said that this reflects more attention to the reasonable housing needs of home buyers, which will help to release the potential of demand.
Macro GDP targets are closely linked to specific targets such as employment. For example, to achieve an economic growth rate of 5.5%, the unemployment rate should be controlled within a range.
Xia Fei, the principal of a college, also talked about the current employment pressure of college students, "Affected by the epidemic and the economic downturn in the past two years, the employment rate of colleges and universities has been declining. In the past few years, the employment rate of our school was basically above 95%. It has dropped to about 86% and 87% in the past two years," he said.
Xia Fei suggested that it is necessary to increase the adjustment of the professional structure and vigorously develop majors that adapt to the market and the needs of the new economy. In the first place, let students have higher ability and quality; at the same time, let students establish a correct employment concept, and also hope that the government will increase financial support for local colleges and universities, and make more "matchmaking" in terms of school-enterprise collaboration and other aspects.
Beijing News Shell Finance reporter Gu Zhijuan Cheng Weimiao Pan Yichun