中
国和印度都遇到了经济增长的放缓，但它们应对这一挑战的条件却完全不一样。北京有一系列可供选择的财政政策和货币政策来重振经济增长，而新德里却必须做出艰难的政治抉择才能阻止增长率的下滑。考虑到欧洲的衰退和美国、日本步履艰难的复苏，中印两国的增长对于全球经济的扩张都是至关重要的。
但印度和中国需要解决的问题并不一样。中国不想重复孤注一掷应对2009年国际金融危机时犯下的错误，比如吹起楼市泡沫。而印度却是在艰难地实施几年前经济繁荣时未能实施的结构性经济改革。
2000年以来，中国国内生产总值(GDP)平均每年增长10%，但政府官员知道他们没法将这种高增长维持下去。今年一季度经济同比增长率下降至8.1%，为2009年以来最低速度；外界普遍预计第二季度将下降到7.5%左右的水平。如果欧元区危机持续下去，或者中国经济刺激执行欠佳，那么中国的增长可能会进一步走弱。
但中国应对冲击的条件优于2008年。其经济增长对出口的依赖已经下降：2008年中国净出口占GDP的7.7%，2011年这个比例下降到了2.6%。通货膨胀率已经下降到3%左右，政府负债估计占GDP的22%，而且还在下降。这样一来，在面对需求减少的时候，中国就有很多经济刺激工具可以使用。
香港智库经纶国际经济研究院(Fung Global Institute)项目主管高路易(Luis Kuijs)说，相比其他国家，中国的条件非常宽裕；与其说问题是它能不能刺激经济，不如说是它将选用哪些政策措施来刺激。
中国经济体中的很大一部分受国有企业控制。这意味着政府的经济决策更容易贯彻执行──不过这也在中国努力实现经济转型、使之更加依赖于创新、竞争和民营企业的过程中给它带来了一些长期问题。
全为国有的中国前五大银行约占全国金融资产的44%，并且听命于中央政府的"窗口指导"，即银行监管机构和央行给出的不听劝告后果自负的贷款建议。在交通运输、能源、电力、建筑和钢铁等基础设施行业中，国有企业都占据着主导地位。
中国政府最近出台了一些刺激措施。为提振大宗商品、建筑等行业的需求，政府批准了两座钢铁厂和多个能源项目。在货币政策方面，央行在过去几周两次下调利率（2008年12月以来第一次这么做），5月份还下调了银行存款准备金率。中国推出更多货币政策措施的空间还很大。
实际上，中国面临的挑战之一是确保不要做过头。在金融危机期间，中国政府曾下令国有企业大幅扩大放贷规模。结果造成大量资金流入基础设施和房地产项目，促进了经济增长，但产生了大量不良贷款和一场房地产泡沫。中国政府已经花了两年的时间，试图刺破这个泡沫。
印度面临着与中国类似的经济挑战，但潜在的解决方案却比中国要少。截至3月31日的一个季度，印度经济增速只有5.3%，是九年来的最低水平。最近一个财年，印度预算赤字占GDP的比重为5.8%，高于4.6%的目标，这使印度几乎没有实施财政刺激的空间。据估计，印度国债占GDP的比重约为67.6%。
汇丰(HSBC)亚洲经济研究联合负责人纽曼(Frederic Neumann)说，印度手脚被束，因此更容易受国际经济放缓的影响。纽曼说，印度没有财政"弹药"来刺激经济，因此不得不忍受经济放缓的痛苦。
印度面临的主要挑战是刺激企业投资。由于国内外企业对印度不断变化的税收政策和规定感到不安，企业投资在不断枯竭。过去一年印度卢比对美元大幅下跌，部分原因在于投资者对印度高额经常项目赤字的担忧情绪日益强烈。目前印度经常项目赤字占GDP的比重约为4%。卢比的贬值推高了印度企业的实际进口成本，并提高了外币贷款的偿还成本。
4月份，印度央行(Reserve Bank of India)三年来首次降息，以鼓励银行向企业放贷。但上个月，在业界指望央行再次降息的时候，央行却说，由于通货膨胀率高达7.6%，令人担忧，央行不能进一步放宽货币政策。
经济学家说，印度刺激经济增长的最佳方法是提供一个更加稳定的监管环境并实施经济改革。这类措施有很多不受反对党欢迎，甚至不受执政党国大党一些盟友的欢迎。可选择的方法之一是允许沃尔玛(Wal-Mart Stores Inc.)等跨国公司投资印度的零售业，并削减数百亿美元的政府燃油补贴，从而清理印度的财政烂摊子。
政治分析人士说，2006年至2010年印度经济以年均8.5%的速度增长时，印度本该实施上述改革。过去两年中，腐败丑闻不但令总理辛格(Manmohan Singh)领导的政府难以集中精力应对经济问题，而且削弱了政府的政治资本。分析人士说，随着2014年全国议会选举临近，改革的希望将变得更加渺茫。
野村证券(Nomura Securities)亚洲经济学家苏巴拉曼(Rob Subbaraman)说，不幸的是，中国经济增长放缓是合情合理的，因为中国正在从一个低收入经济体向中等收入经济体发展，而在印度，经济增长应该是在加快而不是在放缓。
上个月，中国和印度向国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)做出了相当大规模的出资承诺，以便帮助应对欧元区债务危机。中国承诺出资430亿美元，印度说将提供约100亿美元资金。但如果这两个亚洲巨擎能够把国内的事情做好，则有可能对全球经济起到更大的提振作用。
Amol Sharma发自新德里 / Bob Davis发自北京
（更新完成）
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
China and India are both dealing with economic slowdowns but are on completely different footing to tackle the challenge. Beijing has a range of fiscal and monetary options to revive growth, while New Delhi must make tough political decisions to stem its decline.
Growth in both countries is essential if the global economy is to expand, given the recession in Europe and the sluggish recovery in the U.S. and Japan.
But India and China are grappling with different issues. China doesn't want to repeat the mistakes -- such as triggering a property bubble -- that it made in its all-out response to the global financial crisis of 2009. India, meanwhile, is struggling to carry out structural economic reforms that it failed to enact during its recent boom years.
China's gross domestic product has grown at an average annualized rate of 10% since 2000, but government officials know they can't sustain that torrid pace. Growth fell to 8.1% year-over-year in the first quarter, the slowest pace since 2009, and is widely expected to fall to about 7.5% in the second quarter. If the euro-zone crisis persists -- or China's stimulus is poorly carried out -- China's growth may weaken further.
But China is better positioned to handle a shock than it was in 2008. It relies less on trade for growth: In 2008, China's net exports amounted to 7.7% of GDP; in 2011 the share had dropped to 2.6%. The rate of inflation has declined to around 3% and government debt is estimated at 22% of GDP and falling, giving China plenty of levers to pull to stimulate its economy in the face of declining demand.
'China is in a very comfortable position compared to the rest of the world,' said Luis Kuijs, project director at the Fung Global Institute, a Hong Kong think tank. 'It's more a matter of choice of what policy measures it will take to stimulate the economy, rather than whether it will be able to.'
A large portion of China's economy is in the hands of its state-owned companies. That means the government can more easily get its economic decisions carried out -- though it does present long-term problems for China as it tries to shift to an economy based on more innovation, competition and private enterprise.
The five largest Chinese banks, all state-owned, account for about 44% of the nation's financial assets and listen closely to the central government's 'window guidance' -- ignore-at-your-peril advice about lending doled out by bank regulators and the central bank. State-owned firms dominate infrastructure sectors including transportation, energy, electricity, construction and steel.
The Chinese government recently has stepped in with stimulus measures. To boost demand for commodities and construction among other industries, the government approved two steel plants and several energy projects. On the monetary front, the central bank cut interest rates twice in the past few weeks -- the first such moves since Dec. 2008 -- and in May cut the level of reserves that banks are required to hold. China has plenty of room for additional monetary moves.
Indeed, one challenge for China is to make sure it doesn't overdo it. During the financial crisis, the government ordered state-owned enterprises to step up lending considerably. The result was a flood of money into infrastructure and real-estate projects that spurred growth, but produced a spate of bad loans and a property bubble -- which the government has spent two years trying to deflate.
India faces an economic challenge similar to China's, but has fewer potential solutions. New Delhi is trying to rebound from 5.3% economic growth in the March 31 quarter, the slowest pace in nine years. Its budget deficit of 5.8% of GDP in the recent fiscal year, which overshot a target of 4.6%, leaves little room for fiscal stimulus. Government debt is estimated at 67.6% of GDP.
'India's hands are tied, and because of that it's much more exposed to the global slowdown,' said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economic research for HSBC. 'It has no fiscal ammo left to pump-prime the economy, so it has to endure a slowdown and take it on the chin.'
India's main challenge is to stimulate business investment, which is drying up amid wariness among both domestic and foreign companies about shifting tax policies and regulations. The country's currency, the rupee, has tumbled against the dollar in the past year, partly due to growing investor concerns about India's high current-account deficit, which is roughly 4% of GDP. The rupee's fall has driven up real import costs for Indian companies and made foreign-currency loans more expensive to service.
In April, the Reserve Bank of India cut interest rates for the first time in three years to encourage lending to business. But when industry was looking for an encore last month, the central bank said it couldn't loosen monetary policy further with inflation uncomfortably high at 7.6%.
Economists say India's best shot at jump-starting growth is to provide a more stable regulatory environment and push through economic overhauls -- many of them unpopular with opposition political parties and even some allies of the ruling Congress party. Among the options are to open up the retail sector to investment by multinational companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and to clean up the nation's fiscal mess by cutting tens of billions of dollars of government fuel subsidies.
Political analysts say India should have tackled those reforms between 2006 and 2010, when the economy was growing at an average annual pace of 8.5%. In the past two years, corruption scandals have distracted the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and sapped its political capital. As national parliamentary elections approach in 2014, the prospects for reforms will dim further, analysts say.
'The sad thing is that it makes sense in China for it to be slowing down, because it's maturing from a low-income to a middle-income economy,' said Rob Subbaraman, Asia economist at Nomura Securities. 'In India, growth should be picking up and not slowing down.'
Last month, China and India made sizable funding commitments to the International Monetary Fund to help counter the euro-zone debt crisis. China pledged $43 billion while India said it would provide about $10 billion. But the Asian giants could provide a much bigger lift to the global economy by getting their own houses in order.
Amol Sharma in New Delhi / Bob Davis in Beijing
Growth in both countries is essential if the global economy is to expand, given the recession in Europe and the sluggish recovery in the U.S. and Japan.
But India and China are grappling with different issues. China doesn't want to repeat the mistakes -- such as triggering a property bubble -- that it made in its all-out response to the global financial crisis of 2009. India, meanwhile, is struggling to carry out structural economic reforms that it failed to enact during its recent boom years.
China's gross domestic product has grown at an average annualized rate of 10% since 2000, but government officials know they can't sustain that torrid pace. Growth fell to 8.1% year-over-year in the first quarter, the slowest pace since 2009, and is widely expected to fall to about 7.5% in the second quarter. If the euro-zone crisis persists -- or China's stimulus is poorly carried out -- China's growth may weaken further.
But China is better positioned to handle a shock than it was in 2008. It relies less on trade for growth: In 2008, China's net exports amounted to 7.7% of GDP; in 2011 the share had dropped to 2.6%. The rate of inflation has declined to around 3% and government debt is estimated at 22% of GDP and falling, giving China plenty of levers to pull to stimulate its economy in the face of declining demand.
'China is in a very comfortable position compared to the rest of the world,' said Luis Kuijs, project director at the Fung Global Institute, a Hong Kong think tank. 'It's more a matter of choice of what policy measures it will take to stimulate the economy, rather than whether it will be able to.'
A large portion of China's economy is in the hands of its state-owned companies. That means the government can more easily get its economic decisions carried out -- though it does present long-term problems for China as it tries to shift to an economy based on more innovation, competition and private enterprise.
The five largest Chinese banks, all state-owned, account for about 44% of the nation's financial assets and listen closely to the central government's 'window guidance' -- ignore-at-your-peril advice about lending doled out by bank regulators and the central bank. State-owned firms dominate infrastructure sectors including transportation, energy, electricity, construction and steel.
The Chinese government recently has stepped in with stimulus measures. To boost demand for commodities and construction among other industries, the government approved two steel plants and several energy projects. On the monetary front, the central bank cut interest rates twice in the past few weeks -- the first such moves since Dec. 2008 -- and in May cut the level of reserves that banks are required to hold. China has plenty of room for additional monetary moves.
Indeed, one challenge for China is to make sure it doesn't overdo it. During the financial crisis, the government ordered state-owned enterprises to step up lending considerably. The result was a flood of money into infrastructure and real-estate projects that spurred growth, but produced a spate of bad loans and a property bubble -- which the government has spent two years trying to deflate.
India faces an economic challenge similar to China's, but has fewer potential solutions. New Delhi is trying to rebound from 5.3% economic growth in the March 31 quarter, the slowest pace in nine years. Its budget deficit of 5.8% of GDP in the recent fiscal year, which overshot a target of 4.6%, leaves little room for fiscal stimulus. Government debt is estimated at 67.6% of GDP.
'India's hands are tied, and because of that it's much more exposed to the global slowdown,' said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economic research for HSBC. 'It has no fiscal ammo left to pump-prime the economy, so it has to endure a slowdown and take it on the chin.'
India's main challenge is to stimulate business investment, which is drying up amid wariness among both domestic and foreign companies about shifting tax policies and regulations. The country's currency, the rupee, has tumbled against the dollar in the past year, partly due to growing investor concerns about India's high current-account deficit, which is roughly 4% of GDP. The rupee's fall has driven up real import costs for Indian companies and made foreign-currency loans more expensive to service.
In April, the Reserve Bank of India cut interest rates for the first time in three years to encourage lending to business. But when industry was looking for an encore last month, the central bank said it couldn't loosen monetary policy further with inflation uncomfortably high at 7.6%.
Economists say India's best shot at jump-starting growth is to provide a more stable regulatory environment and push through economic overhauls -- many of them unpopular with opposition political parties and even some allies of the ruling Congress party. Among the options are to open up the retail sector to investment by multinational companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and to clean up the nation's fiscal mess by cutting tens of billions of dollars of government fuel subsidies.
Political analysts say India should have tackled those reforms between 2006 and 2010, when the economy was growing at an average annual pace of 8.5%. In the past two years, corruption scandals have distracted the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and sapped its political capital. As national parliamentary elections approach in 2014, the prospects for reforms will dim further, analysts say.
'The sad thing is that it makes sense in China for it to be slowing down, because it's maturing from a low-income to a middle-income economy,' said Rob Subbaraman, Asia economist at Nomura Securities. 'In India, growth should be picking up and not slowing down.'
Last month, China and India made sizable funding commitments to the International Monetary Fund to help counter the euro-zone debt crisis. China pledged $43 billion while India said it would provide about $10 billion. But the Asian giants could provide a much bigger lift to the global economy by getting their own houses in order.
Amol Sharma in New Delhi / Bob Davis in Beijing
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