中
国国务院总理温家宝说，中国政府希望经济增长能够放缓，以避免通货膨胀并调整经济结构，而此时多数发达国家正在努力加速扩张经济。
Reuters
在中国安徽省合肥市的一个市场里，顾客在察看价格牌。温家宝总理承诺过会减缓通胀。
对资本密集型产业（如钢铁业）的巨额投资以及将自身变为世界工厂成就了中国的惊人崛起，从贫困的农村地区迁移到沿海城市的工人则为工厂提供了人手。但在过去三十年里中国每年超过9%的增长速度也有其高昂代价：污染严重、不平等现象迅速加剧、腐败现象非常普遍。
周日（2月27日）温家宝与中国网友在线对话时透露了新的经济增长目标。他说，我们绝不能再以牺牲环境的代价来换取高速增长，那样就会造成产能过剩，环境资源压力加大，经济发展不可持续。
中国的经济学家提醒说，7%的增长目标不应该只从字面上理解，而是作为对世界和各省官员释放的信号，即中国政府是严肃对待转变经济增长驱动力的问题，将重心转移至国内消费。
2006年公布的"十一五"规划将经济增长的目标定在7.5%，但2006年至2010年之间，经济实际增速为11.1%。上一次中国政府将经济增长目标设定在7%还是2001年的事情，那时中国刚从亚洲金融危机中复苏过来，GDP增长了7.5%。但据摩根大通（J.P. Morgan）的数据，在2001年至2005年之间，中国GDP平均增长率为9.8%。
摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）中国分析师王庆说，政府在五年规划中设定的目标往往并不能准确地预示未来五年的增长情况。但这也意味着我们将看到经济增长放缓。他预测在接下来的五年里年均增长率为9%，随后的五年中年均增长率不到8%。
其他人则不太乐观。哈佛大学经济学家罗格夫（Kenneth Rogoff）警告说，中国经济可能会狠狠摔一跤，尤其是如果中国受到银行危机的羁绊。
国内外的一批经济学家认为，过去的增长率是不可持续的，因为中国人口逐渐老龄化，以及通过进一步增加出口和投资来加速增长的机会也越来越少。
这就导致了一个奇怪的现象：中国之外的国家都在试图加速增长，期望从全球金融危机中复苏过来，而中国正试图踩刹车。布鲁金斯学会的经济学家普拉萨德（Eswar Prasad）说，中国的领导人不是排斥经济增长，而是意识到他们没有取得有质量的增长，普通家庭没有获得与经济增长相称的利益。
温家宝是中国负责经济事务的领导人，他与网友在线交流是在一年一度的全国人民代表大会召开之前。今年的全国人大将于3月5日开幕，会上将正式发布中国十二五规划。
每年，温家宝还会在全国人大开幕式上所作的政府工作报告中提出一个独立的、同样具有象征意义的8%的年度经济增长目标。不清楚今年温家宝讲话时，这个增速是否也会下调。
美国及G20其他成员国一直在敦促中国调整经济增长模式，以减少对出口增长的依赖，至少自2004年以来温家宝就一直将此作为一个目标。不过，中国在这个问题上并没有取得进展。消费在经济中的比重远远低于其他主要经济体中的比重。通过更多地依靠投资实现增长，中国政府把经济增长的大部分获益给了大型国有企业而不是家庭，进而引发了公众的不满。温家宝呼吁增长模型向消费倾斜，此举对国有企业是一个挑战──中国的国有企业吞食了越来越大比例的中国财富，给企业高管和在共产党内部的政治靠山带来了好处。本月，国家媒体报导了曾经大权在握的铁道部部长刘志军被解职的消息。这位前部长曾负责监管投向国有高速铁路网络建设企业的数十亿美元的投资。
负责实施经济规划的各省市领导也缺乏减少投资的动力，因为对他们的考核主要是依据他们实现快速增长的能力。新项目也可能成为他们收受开发商等人贿赂的来源。
据新华网"温家宝总理答问网友精彩妙语集"专题的报导，中央政府计划对地方政府采用新的考核标准，将更加看重效率、环保和人民的生活水平。新华网没有详细报导。
布鲁金斯学会的经济学家普拉萨德说，向扩大内需转型无一例外意味着经济增速会放缓。不过，随着劳动密集型服务业的进一步发展，即使增速放缓，也有望创造更多的就业岗位。2000年至2009年，尽管中国GDP增速很快，就业率年增速却只有0.9%。
温家宝还明确表示，中国不打算像G20成员国一直敦促的那样，通过大幅调整汇率来实现经济增长目标。自2010年六月中旬中国宣布允许人民币在一定程度上浮动以来，人民币兑美元已经累计升值3.7%，平均每月升值不到0.5%。一般来说，货币升值可以使进口商品更加便宜，进而提高居民生活水平。升值货币还可能是遏制通胀的一个工具。
据新华网报导，温家宝重申，人民币的升值必须以一种谨慎、渐进的方式进行。他说，如果人民币一次大幅度的升值，就会造成许多加工企业的破产或者无法经营，就会造成外贸企业订单转向其他国家，而我们许多工人要失业，而这些工人又多以农民工为主。
温家宝还尽量具体地叙述了将采取的抑制房价上涨的措施。一些经济学家认为房价上涨有泡沫化的危险。报导援引温家宝的话说，要把房价过快上涨的势头控制住，使房价能够保持在一个合理的水平。他说，政府计划在2015年前新建3,600万套保障性住房，采取经济和法律手段，以及必要的行政手段来抑制投机。
温家宝谈到了中国利用货币政策努力遏制通胀和楼市投机，但在新华网的报导中温家宝没有提到汇率政策。本月早些时候，中国将基准一年期贷款利率提高0.25个百分点至6.06%，是四个月中的第三次上调。预计还会出台更多的收紧措施。
不过，中国通常依靠其他工具来遏制通胀，包括产业政策。举例来讲，为抑制食品价格上涨，中国一直在提高粮食收购价格，增加农村水利建设项目，投放政府储备粮、油和糖。政府对依靠汇率遏制通胀持谨慎态度，部分原因是加息会加大中国避免人民币进一步升值的难度。
Bob Davis
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
China's premier said the government wants slower economic growth to avoid inflation and to restructure the economy, even as much of the developed world is struggling to accelerate expansion.
Premier Wen Jiabao said the government's official target for average gross domestic product growth over the next five years will be 7% annually, down from a target of 7.5% in the past half decade. While official targets routinely underestimate growth, the move is nonetheless an important signal that government priorities in the world's No. 2 economy are shifting to reduce dependence on exports and capital-intensive industries in favor of creating conditions for more domestic demand.
(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal website, WSJ.com.)
China's stunning rise has come through huge investment in capital-intensive industries like steel and by turning itself into the world's factory floor, manned by workers who migrate to coastal cities from impoverished rural areas. But China's growth rate of more than 9% a year over the past three decades has come with steep costs: heavy pollution, a sharp increase in inequality and pervasive corruption.
'We'll never seek economic growth rate and big size at the price of environment,' Mr. Wen told Chinese Internet users in an online chat Sunday in which he disclosed the new target. 'That would result in unsustainable growth featuring industrial overcapacity and intensive resource consumption.'
Chinese economists cautioned the 7% goal shouldn't be taken literally, but as a signal to the world and to provincial authorities that the government is serious about shifting the drivers of growth toward domestic consumption.
The previous five-year plan, announced in 2006, had a growth target of 7.5%, but the economy grew 11.1% between 2006 and 2010. The last time China set a growth rate as low as 7% was in 2001, when China was recovering from the Asian financial crisis and GDP grew 7.5%. Still, between 2001 and 2005, China's GDP wound up growing, on average, 9.8%, according to J.P. Morgan.
'The official target under the five-year plan tends to be a very poor indicator of growth over next five years,' said Qing Wang, a Morgan Stanley China analyst. 'But it suggests we'll see slower growth ahead.' He forecasts average annual growth of 9% a year over the coming five years, and less than 8% for the following five years.
Others are less sanguine. Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff warned China may stumble more sharply, particularly if it is tripped up by a banking crisis.
A number of economists inside and outside of China argue that the past growth rates are unsustainable, as China's population ages and the country has fewer opportunities for sharp gains by further increasing exports and investment.
This has led to a curious dichotomy: The world outside China is trying to accelerate growth to recover from the global financial crisis while China is trying to tap on the brakes. 'Chinese leaders are not averse to growth, but they realize they are not getting good-quality growth that has commensurate benefits for the average household,' says Brookings Institution economist Eswar Prasad.
Mr. Wen, China's leading economic official, made his comments in the run-up to the formal release of China's next five-year economic plan at the annual meeting of its National People's Congress that starts on March 5.
Mr. Wen every year also issues a separate, and equally symbolic, 'target' for that year's growth of 8% in his speech at the start of the legislative session. It's unclear whether that figure will also be adjusted down when Mr. Wen addresses the NPC.
The U.S. and other members of the Group of 20 major economies have been urging China to 'rebalance' its growth, so that it relies less on export growth, and Mr. Wen has adopted that as a goal since at least 2004. But China has made little progress. The percentage of the economy accounted for by consumption is far lower than in other major economies. By skewing growth toward investment, the government has funneled the economy's largesse into huge state-owned enterprises and away from households, stoking public resentment. Mr. Wen's call to rebalance growth toward consumption represents a challenge to the state-owned 'national champions' who have gobbled up a growing slice of the country's wealth, benefitting their senior managers and their political patrons in the Communist Party. This month, state media reported the sacking of the powerful railways minister who oversaw billions of dollars of investment in state firms building a high-speed rail network.
Provincial officials, who carry out economic plans, also have little incentive to reduce investment because they are largely graded on their ability to deliver fast growth. New projects also can become sources of payoffs from developers and others.
According to the Xinhua report--in a section called 'remarkable quotes from Wen's online chats with netizens'--the Chinese government plans to adopt 'new evaluation criteria' for local governments that 'would give more weight to efficiency, environment protection and the people's living standards.' Xinhua didn't report any specifics.
Shifting to domestic sources of demand would invariably mean slower growth rates, said Mr. Prasad, the Brookings economist. But even a slower rate of growth could produce more jobs as labor-intensive service industries develop further. Employment grew in China by just 0.9% a year between 2000 and 2009, despite its rapid GDP expansion.
Premier Wen also made clear that China didn't intend to use exchange rates more aggressively to further its economic goals, as has been urged by G-20 nations. The yuan has appreciated 3.7% against the dollar since China said in mid-June 2010 that it would let its currency float somewhat, for an average of a bit less than 0.5% a month. An appreciating currency can boost living standards by making imports cheaper. It also can be a tool to fight inflation.
The Chinese premier reiterated that the currency would move in a 'prudent and gradual manner,' according to Xinhua. 'A one-off and hefty appreciation of the yuan will bankrupt many export businesses with the loss of workers' jobs, especially those of rural migrant workers,' he said.
Mr. Wen was at his most specific in outlining steps that would be taken to limit the rise of property values, which some economists believe are in danger of inflating into a bubble. 'We have to contain the excessive price growth and keep housing prices at a reasonable level,' he was quoted as saying. The government plans to build 36 million 'affordable homes' by 2015, he said, and would use 'economic, legal and administrative methods, if necessary, to restrict speculation.'
While a Xinhua 'backgrounder,' discussed China's use of monetary policy to try to curb inflation and property speculation, Mr. Wen didn't mention interest-rate policy in the Xinhua report. Earlier this month, China lifted its benchmark one-year yuan lending rate by 0.25 percentage point to 6.06%, the third rise in four months. More tightening is expected.
But China generally relies on other tools to fight inflation, including industrial policy. To fight food inflation, for instance, China has boosted purchasing prices for grains, increased rural water conservation projects and sold government reserves of grain, oil and sugar. It is wary of relying on interest rates, in part, because boosting them makes it even tougher for China to keep its currency from appreciating further.
Bob Davis
Premier Wen Jiabao said the government's official target for average gross domestic product growth over the next five years will be 7% annually, down from a target of 7.5% in the past half decade. While official targets routinely underestimate growth, the move is nonetheless an important signal that government priorities in the world's No. 2 economy are shifting to reduce dependence on exports and capital-intensive industries in favor of creating conditions for more domestic demand.
(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal website, WSJ.com.)
China's stunning rise has come through huge investment in capital-intensive industries like steel and by turning itself into the world's factory floor, manned by workers who migrate to coastal cities from impoverished rural areas. But China's growth rate of more than 9% a year over the past three decades has come with steep costs: heavy pollution, a sharp increase in inequality and pervasive corruption.
'We'll never seek economic growth rate and big size at the price of environment,' Mr. Wen told Chinese Internet users in an online chat Sunday in which he disclosed the new target. 'That would result in unsustainable growth featuring industrial overcapacity and intensive resource consumption.'
Chinese economists cautioned the 7% goal shouldn't be taken literally, but as a signal to the world and to provincial authorities that the government is serious about shifting the drivers of growth toward domestic consumption.
The previous five-year plan, announced in 2006, had a growth target of 7.5%, but the economy grew 11.1% between 2006 and 2010. The last time China set a growth rate as low as 7% was in 2001, when China was recovering from the Asian financial crisis and GDP grew 7.5%. Still, between 2001 and 2005, China's GDP wound up growing, on average, 9.8%, according to J.P. Morgan.
'The official target under the five-year plan tends to be a very poor indicator of growth over next five years,' said Qing Wang, a Morgan Stanley China analyst. 'But it suggests we'll see slower growth ahead.' He forecasts average annual growth of 9% a year over the coming five years, and less than 8% for the following five years.
Others are less sanguine. Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff warned China may stumble more sharply, particularly if it is tripped up by a banking crisis.
A number of economists inside and outside of China argue that the past growth rates are unsustainable, as China's population ages and the country has fewer opportunities for sharp gains by further increasing exports and investment.
This has led to a curious dichotomy: The world outside China is trying to accelerate growth to recover from the global financial crisis while China is trying to tap on the brakes. 'Chinese leaders are not averse to growth, but they realize they are not getting good-quality growth that has commensurate benefits for the average household,' says Brookings Institution economist Eswar Prasad.
Mr. Wen, China's leading economic official, made his comments in the run-up to the formal release of China's next five-year economic plan at the annual meeting of its National People's Congress that starts on March 5.
Mr. Wen every year also issues a separate, and equally symbolic, 'target' for that year's growth of 8% in his speech at the start of the legislative session. It's unclear whether that figure will also be adjusted down when Mr. Wen addresses the NPC.
The U.S. and other members of the Group of 20 major economies have been urging China to 'rebalance' its growth, so that it relies less on export growth, and Mr. Wen has adopted that as a goal since at least 2004. But China has made little progress. The percentage of the economy accounted for by consumption is far lower than in other major economies. By skewing growth toward investment, the government has funneled the economy's largesse into huge state-owned enterprises and away from households, stoking public resentment. Mr. Wen's call to rebalance growth toward consumption represents a challenge to the state-owned 'national champions' who have gobbled up a growing slice of the country's wealth, benefitting their senior managers and their political patrons in the Communist Party. This month, state media reported the sacking of the powerful railways minister who oversaw billions of dollars of investment in state firms building a high-speed rail network.
Provincial officials, who carry out economic plans, also have little incentive to reduce investment because they are largely graded on their ability to deliver fast growth. New projects also can become sources of payoffs from developers and others.
According to the Xinhua report--in a section called 'remarkable quotes from Wen's online chats with netizens'--the Chinese government plans to adopt 'new evaluation criteria' for local governments that 'would give more weight to efficiency, environment protection and the people's living standards.' Xinhua didn't report any specifics.
Shifting to domestic sources of demand would invariably mean slower growth rates, said Mr. Prasad, the Brookings economist. But even a slower rate of growth could produce more jobs as labor-intensive service industries develop further. Employment grew in China by just 0.9% a year between 2000 and 2009, despite its rapid GDP expansion.
Premier Wen also made clear that China didn't intend to use exchange rates more aggressively to further its economic goals, as has been urged by G-20 nations. The yuan has appreciated 3.7% against the dollar since China said in mid-June 2010 that it would let its currency float somewhat, for an average of a bit less than 0.5% a month. An appreciating currency can boost living standards by making imports cheaper. It also can be a tool to fight inflation.
The Chinese premier reiterated that the currency would move in a 'prudent and gradual manner,' according to Xinhua. 'A one-off and hefty appreciation of the yuan will bankrupt many export businesses with the loss of workers' jobs, especially those of rural migrant workers,' he said.
Mr. Wen was at his most specific in outlining steps that would be taken to limit the rise of property values, which some economists believe are in danger of inflating into a bubble. 'We have to contain the excessive price growth and keep housing prices at a reasonable level,' he was quoted as saying. The government plans to build 36 million 'affordable homes' by 2015, he said, and would use 'economic, legal and administrative methods, if necessary, to restrict speculation.'
While a Xinhua 'backgrounder,' discussed China's use of monetary policy to try to curb inflation and property speculation, Mr. Wen didn't mention interest-rate policy in the Xinhua report. Earlier this month, China lifted its benchmark one-year yuan lending rate by 0.25 percentage point to 6.06%, the third rise in four months. More tightening is expected.
But China generally relies on other tools to fight inflation, including industrial policy. To fight food inflation, for instance, China has boosted purchasing prices for grains, increased rural water conservation projects and sold government reserves of grain, oil and sugar. It is wary of relying on interest rates, in part, because boosting them makes it even tougher for China to keep its currency from appreciating further.
Bob Davis
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