Experts take the pulse of China's economy: expanding domestic demand is a "good recipe" to accelerate recovery

(Economic Watch) Experts take the pulse of China's economy: expanding domestic demand is a "good recipe" to accelerate recovery

Beijing, 3 Mar (ZXS) -- Today, China is in a stage of steady recovery, and its economy has maintained a good and upward development. However, some problems still need to be solved: the contradiction of insufficient domestic demand is prominent, and the recovery momentum of consumption is still not strong. How to break through the existing obstacles and further promote economic stability and recovery? During the 26 Annual Meeting of the China Development High-level Forum, experts and scholars from home and abroad gathered to take the pulse of China's economy.

Wang Yiming, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges and former deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, pointed out that although the current fundamentals have warmed significantly, China's economic recovery still faces the problem of uneven development.

For example, the recovery momentum of consumption is still not strong. Although service consumption has rebounded significantly since the beginning of this year, especially during the Spring Festival, the consumption of durable consumer goods such as automobiles and household appliances is still not strong enough, and residents' consumer confidence is still affected by income growth and consumption expectations. In addition, due to the repeated impact of the epidemic in the past three years, the balance sheet of the household sector has been seriously damaged, household consumption has become more cautious, and the willingness to save has generally increased, further restricting the recovery of consumption.

Stephen Roach, a senior researcher at Yale University, pointed out that China has performed well in job creation and real wage growth, but in the medium and long term development, it faces challenges in population growth and social security for residents, which may drag down consumption.

What is the "good recipe" to break through the above dilemma? Experts have a unanimous answer: expand domestic demand. "Expanding domestic demand is not only the key to promoting economic stability and recovery, but also the fundamental way for sustained and stable growth of China's economy in the medium and long term." Wang Yiming said.

Liu Zunyi, a professor at Hong Kong's Chinese University, said bluntly: "Today, China's economic growth is no longer driven by import and export growth, but mainly driven by the growth of domestic aggregate demand. ”

"To maintain high economic growth while the labor force population declines, it is necessary to stimulate and raise the level of productivity through domestic demand." Roach pointed out.

Where should we start to expand domestic demand? Liu Zunyi said that total domestic demand includes household consumption, public goods consumption and domestic fixed investment, of which investment is the most important source.

Bai Chongen, Dean of the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University, pointed out that in order for investment to be sustainable and have a sustainable positive impact on the economy, it is necessary to continuously improve investment efficiency. To this end, we should make adaptations in terms of supervision, so as to give full play to market forces and fully release investment potential.

Wang Yiming believes that first of all, we must take the recovery and expansion of consumption as the policy focus of expanding domestic demand. Since the strategy of expanding domestic demand was proposed in 1998, the policy focus has been mainly on expanding investment, and the means and policy tools to expand consumption are relatively limited.

Second, the expansion needs to be based on the improvement of consumption expectations. It is necessary to seize the "window period" of accelerated economic recovery, boost market confidence by solving key issues, and activate the enthusiasm of enterprises to expand investment and the vitality of social innovation.

Therefore, he suggested that restrictive measures on the consumption of medium- and high-end goods and services should be relaxed. "China has the world's largest and most growing middle- and high-income group, which is the backbone of leading consumption transformation and upgrading, and plays a supporting role in expanding consumption. Therefore, consideration could be given to easing purchase restrictions in the housing sector to support demand for improved housing. Wang Yiming said.

In recent years, the relationship between supply and demand and the main contradictions in China's real estate market have undergone profound changes. Tian Guoli, chairman of China Construction Bank, believes that consumption upgrading calls for the advent of the era of large leasing, and real estate will continue to play an important role in expanding domestic demand in China. He said: "The desire of urban and rural residents to upgrade housing consumption is very strong, and the size of the middle-income group and its urbanization potential will provide new opportunities for the upgrading of real estate consumption demand and the consequent urban renewal, asset revitalization, and upstream and downstream industrial chain investment." ”

"The real estate industry is very important to the development of China's economy and has a great impact on the downstream industry," Liu Zunyi said, adding that the development of the rental housing market will promote the growth of total social demand. For housing rental assets such as "commercial conversion to rent", institutional investors can manage the long-term rental housing market. (End)