In the first three quarters of 2022, China's GDP will grow by 3.0% year-on-year. Economists generally predict that China's GDP will grow by about 3.1% in 2022.
Many people don't know, what does the number "3.1%" mean?
This not only means that our economic growth rate in 2022 will be the "second lowest" since the reform and opening up (only higher than 2020);
also means that our government has not completed the "GDP" set at the beginning of the year Economic growth target of around 5.5%"— This is the first time in 24 years that the Chinese government has failed to achieve the annual economic growth target . The last time
failed to achieve its goal was in 1998 when the financial crisis in Southeast Asia broke out.
And that time, in order to hit the target. We are decisive and carry out the reform of state-owned enterprises. In the spring of the second year of
, the highest level withstood diplomatic pressure to visit the United States and gnawed at the final stage of the "WTO accession negotiations".
So this time, what shall we do?
On December 15, 2022, a blockbuster meeting at the end of the year "Central Economic Work Conference" pointed out the direction.
Today, Bai Nian will lead everyone to interpret this meeting that "sets the tone for the next year". Looking at 2023, how will the government sprint for economic development?
The economic development environment in 2023
The government has not achieved its economic goals in 2022. We can all understand that it is because of the sudden Omicron epidemic, which is understandable.
But for the government, economic development has no excuse.
To put it in a big way, if China wants to achieve national rejuvenation and win the game between China and the United States, it must rely on GDP growth; in a small way, economic development is related to the employment and food and clothing of every family. In November 2022, China's " urban surveyed unemployment rate" rose to 5.7%, 0.6 percentage points higher than that at the end of 2021.
This 0.6 percentage point may not seem like much, but it actually means that three to four million people are directly unemployed. And above them, there are tens of millions of people whose incomes have declined.
Therefore, in 2023, the government has reached a point where it must "fight the economy" - which is why, in the winter of 2022, our prevention and control measures will undergo such a drastic change.
However, we have to ask here, if the prevention and control measures are shifted, will the economy naturally improve?
not necessarily.
Regarding the internal and external economic development environment in 2023, the Central Economic Work Conference set the tone as "external environment is stormy and stormy", domestic "demand contraction, supply shocks, and expected weakening triple pressures are still relatively large" , economic The challenges are daunting.
What does this mean? Let's look at them one by one:
first looks at the external environment. At present, we are now facing four external challenges:
First, the Russia-Ukraine conflict is still going on, the future is uncertain, and the global order and supply chain are facing collapse and remodeling;
Second, global stagflation will continue for a long time, There are not only epidemic factors behind this, but also the problem of excessive currency issuance by major overseas central banks;
Third, The Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike is entering its climax. The current US dollar interest rate is at the highest level in 15 years. The strong US dollar cycle has led to a weakening of the renminbi, and there is a lot of pressure on domestic capital outflows; There will also be new plans to contain China. And the Republican Party , which loves to fight trade wars, will control the US House of Representatives after the mid-term elections. It is still unknown whether the Sino-US trade war will resume.
And the results of all these have been partly reflected in our export data. According to
statistics from the General Administration of Customs, China's export growth rate fell by 0.2% in October 2022. This is the first time since June 2020 that China's export growth rate has turned negative year-on-year.
November, middleThe growth rate of China's exports dropped rapidly to -8.9%. Economists generally expect export pressure to show further in 2023.
External demand is sluggish, what about domestic demand?
In China, officials believe that the "triple pressure" of shrinking demand, supply shocks, and weakening expectations is still relatively large . In terms of demand, due to repeated outbreaks of the epidemic, in the first 11 months of 2022, the official PMI will be below the boom-bust line for seven months. depression zone".
On the supply side, at the turn of summer and autumn in 2022, many provinces and cities in the south will once again experience "power rationing." At the moment of rapid energy transformation, our energy supply system has exposed shortcomings. At the same time, affected by the sanctions of the US " Chip Act ", the problem of Chinese technology products such as chips getting stuck continues unabated. National brands such as , Huawei, and cannot produce products of the highest quality, which will also affect people's desire to buy.
Everyone wants to wait a little longer to see if the next generation of products will be better. But wait and wait, the economy slows down.
In terms of expectations, according to the Central Bank of China confidence survey on entrepreneurs, in the third quarter of 2022, the proportion of entrepreneurs who believe that "business conditions are poor" has reached a two-year high of 20.3%.
At the same time, the statistics of "urban and rural residents' savings deposits" by central bank show that in the first half of 2022, residents' savings deposits increased by 13.4% year-on-year, and the growth rate was more than 3 percentage points higher than that in 2019 before the epidemic.
What does this mean? It means that the people's confidence in the real economy is weak, and everyone is saving money and unwilling to spend it.
So based on the above information, you should be able to feel that the economic challenges we face in 2023 are severe. There are not only factors of the epidemic, but also factors of the international environment other than the epidemic.
So, what should the government do next?
The Central Economic Work Conference this time gave "two directions".
Direction 1: Promoting public consumption
The Central Economic Work Conference in 2022 proposed: "Put priority on restoring and expanding consumption."
Note the phrase "priority" , which rarely appeared in past government meetings and working documents.
The last time I could find this phrase appeared was in 2018—the country used it when implementing strategies for rural revitalization and poverty alleviation. That's a testament to the phrase's weight, reflecting the government's urgency to boost consumption.
So what should the government do? As you can guess, the most direct method of
is subsidies.
Since the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, in order to stimulate consumption, local governments have allocated a considerable amount of funds, most of which are issued in the form of "consumer vouchers".
I don't know if you have snatched the consumer coupons issued by the local government?
After the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 and until the May Day holiday of that year, 28 provinces and cities and more than 170 prefecture-level cities across the country have issued more than 19 billion yuan in consumer vouchers.
According to National Development Institute of Peking University statistics on the use of consumer vouchers at that time, it was found that for every 1 yuan of consumer vouchers issued by the local government, the average consumption of local residents can be leveraged by 6.4 yuan .
If we look back a few years back, during the financial crisis in 2009, the country also carried out a mighty " home appliances to the countryside " project, giving 13% price subsidies to color TVs, refrigerators and other products.
Accumulative subsidy funds of 7.54 billion yuan were issued by the government that year, driving the sales of 34.5 million home appliances with a sales amount of 64.7 billion yuan, making outstanding contributions to promoting the Chinese economy out of the haze of the financial crisis.
But having said that, there are also imperfections in the consumption voucher policy, and that is the problem of "regional imbalance".
Because the main body of the subsidy is the local government, the local government in the rich area will give it to those who have financial spare capacityIt tends to issue more, but those provinces and cities in the central and western regions that lack financial funds may issue less.
According to the statistics of the issuance of consumer coupons in various places in November and December 2022, we can see the characteristics of obvious geographical imbalance.
For example, Shanghai issued 100 million yuan in consumer vouchers, Fujian issued 200 million yuan, and Shenzhen provided 30 million yuan. The non-provincial capital cities in the central and western regions will basically be absent from the list of consumer coupon issuance in the winter of 2022.
However, the Midwest region also has its own tricks.
Because there are generally rich tourism resources, local governments in the central and western regions can make a fuss about tickets for scenic spots.
In fact, although the epidemic has not yet passed, the governments of Shanxi and Gansu have already started planning to attract tourists in 2023.
Among them, Shanxi requires that from January 1 to June 30, 2023, scenic spots must pre-sell tickets at discounted prices on online platforms; Gansu has 85% of A-level scenic spots that have implemented ticket reduction and free admission policies.
But we think further, whether it is consumer coupons or scenic spot ticket reductions, all belong to the policy of "treating the symptoms, not the root cause".
It can temporarily seduce people's consumption and travel desire after the epidemic, but it can't make people pay for it all the time. If
wants to boost consumption for a long time, it still needs to solve the "worries" of ordinary people.
This is also what the Central Economic Work Conference put forward at the same time, it is necessary to "start with improving social psychological expectations and boosting development confidence".
translated into the vernacular means that the people were unwilling to consume in the past two years because they lacked confidence in future job stability and income growth, so we must give the people this confidence. How to give
?
Here I have to mention, a heavy document released after the meeting, "Strategic Planning Outline for Expansion of Domestic Demand (2022-2035)". The
Outline proposes: should increase the proportion of labor remuneration in the primary distribution , increase the labor remuneration of workers, especially front-line workers;
strengthen the tax adjustment and supervision of high-income earners, and focus on increasing the taxation of those with relatively backward development levels. The region’s transfer payments will be strong and will be used for public services such as medical care, pensions, and education.
Here, it is connected with our long-term goal of " common prosperity ". Only when people's income and social welfare are effectively improved can people dare to spend money.
Of course, this is a long-term project that requires us to make a lot of efforts before it can be realized.
Direction 2: Boost business confidence
The past 2021 and 2022 can be said to be a "big year" for regulation. Industries such as the Internet, real estate, education, and medical care have encountered regulation and reform one after another.
For ordinary people, this is of course a good thing. It breaks the "choice of two" and "killing familiarity" of large Internet platforms, and reduces the burden of living and raising the middle class in cities.
But for the entrepreneurs in the above-mentioned industries, the government regulation seems to be caught off guard. Due to the loss of the original channel of "earning quick money", many entrepreneurs are in a state of being beaten all of a sudden.
In the real estate industry, Evergrande and , which are expanding the most, are still in a "flat" state; while the market value of the two Internet giants, Tencent and Ali , has shrunk by nearly 2/3 so far.
The experience of leading companies has caused a "chilling effect" in the industry. Let other entrepreneurs shrink back and dare not invest in the face of some normal or even encouraged development tracks.
According to the report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers , in the first half of 2022, the number and amount of investment in the Internet and mobile Internet industries are at the lowest point in the past three years, with a total of 236 investments, a 40% decrease from the previous month; The total was US$1.98 billion, down 78% from the previous month.
As for the real estate industry with a larger scale, the development investment volume from January to November 2022 will drop by 9.8% year-on-year.
However, is government supervision really a "one-shot kill" of industries such as the Internet and real estate? of course not.
still uses the Internet as an example.
Although the newly revised "Anti-Monopoly Law" in August 2022 clearlyIt clearly stipulates that platform companies must not use data and algorithms, technology, and platform rules to engage in behaviors that abuse market dominance.
However, in the "14th Five-Year Plan", it is also clearly stated that " a new generation of information technology " is a strategic emerging industry , and it ranks first among the eight major industries, and is highly encouraged by the government.
So the conclusion is obvious, that is, the government not only explicitly prohibits industries such as the Internet and real estate, but also actively guides and vigorously supports them.
In the past two years, our government's actions have focused on "prohibition", and for some time to come, our government will focus on "guidance and support".
For the Internet, for example, we can see the changes in the government's work focus from the annual conference announcements. In the
2020 meeting, the position was "strengthening anti-monopoly and preventing the disorderly expansion of capital";
2021 was "setting traffic lights, supporting and guiding capital regulation and healthy development";
's latest position in 2022 became "supporting the platform Enterprises show their talents in leading development, creating jobs, and competing internationally”;
From the changes in stances, we can see that the old rectification of is almost completed, and the future policies will be more friendly to Internet companies and the platform economy. The same goes for
real estate.
Although we have been emphasizing that "housing should not be speculated", this meeting also proposed "supporting rigid and improved housing needs", "meeting the industry's reasonable financing needs, and effectively preventing and defusing the risks of high-quality leading real estate companies".
In order to cooperate with the spirit of the meeting, the China Securities Regulatory Commission recently reopened the door of "backdoor listing" of real estate companies that had been suspended for 12 years, which is a signal that real estate regulation has begun to loosen.
Summary
The above is the core content of this meeting, and finally Bo Nian will make a brief summary.
Facing the complex foreign economic situation in 2023 and the new situation of recovery after the domestic epidemic, this time the Central Economic Work Conference has set two most important tones:
One is to promote consumption.
In the short term, large-scale consumption vouchers, subsidies and other means are used to arouse the public's desire to consume that has been suppressed for three years.
Combine income distribution and social welfare reform for a long time to alleviate the worries of ordinary people, so that everyone dares to consume and is willing to consume.
The second is to boost the confidence of enterprises, and use more means of encouragement and support rather than prohibition to guide the development of industries such as the Internet and real estate. Of course, this meeting also talked about many other means of stabilizing the economy. For example, it is necessary to reasonably increase the government deficit and attract private capital to participate in infrastructure projects.
But due to time constraints, Bo Nian will not introduce them here one by one.
In short, economic development is always the most important task for our government, and it is our duty to do so. The problems arising from
development can only be solved by development itself.
At this meeting, we saw the determination of the country to develop the economy. Bai Nian believes that we can do better in 2023.
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