对于中国经济所面临的问题，中国总理温家宝可谓坦诚得令人无可指摘。近年来他曾提到，中国令人瞩目的整体增长是“不稳定、不平衡、不协调和不可持续的。”这一增长过于依赖投资和出口，过于向东部沿海大城市倾斜。上周，温家宝在提交给全国人大的年度“政府工作报告”中警告称，中国经济虽然在2009年取得了8.7%的增长，但这一成绩并不意味着经济运行出现根本好转。他表示：“经济增长内生动力不足。”这是在暗指中国经济对政府引导的刺激措施的依赖。早些时候他曾承认自己对资产泡沫感到担心，并把某些大城市的楼市比作“脱缰的野马”。
这留给中国政府一项棘手的任务：就在它努力应对经济局部过热矛盾的同时，它还得想方设法提高消费。总体而言，中国经济目前仍然依赖于刺激。现阶段，中国的财政政策仍将是扩张性的，年度预算赤字占国内生产总值(GDP)的比重，预计将从2.2%升至2.8%。但是，新基建投资的审批将受到严格控制，这预示着作为诸多基建支出融资手段的信贷扩张将出现放缓。上周六，中国央行行长周小川还给出了人民币逐步升值的前景，他把人民币钉住美元称为一种“特殊的”政策。虽然不是什么万能药，但人民币升值或许有助于中国经济恢复平衡，因为以美元计算，中国消费者将变得更加富有。
在这些棘手的领域采取渐进政策，是不可避免的。但其中一个领域已被讨论多时却未付诸足够的行动，那就是户籍制度的改革。它把中国公民划分为农村居民和城市居民。在城市打工的大约两亿名农民工，绝大多数不能申领城市户口，从而剥夺了他们子女上学、以及他们获得收入补助和有补贴住房的权利。对于中国政府打算如何解决这一问题，温家宝并未做出详细说明。中国需要一个允许人们成为永久城市居民的计划。该计划将有助于消费，因为它将让数千万人士获得更稳健的社会基础，打消一部分导致他们倾向于储蓄的忧虑。正如人民币升值一样，改革不公正和过时的户籍制度也不是万能药。但是，如果管理得当，这将是一项正确之举。
译者/何黎
Wen Jiabao, China's premier, can be disarmingly honest about problems facing the Chinese economy. In recent years, he has referred to remarkable headline growth – overly dependent on investment and exports and skewed towards the big cities of the eastern seaboard – as “unstable, unbalanced, unco-ordinated and unsustainable.” Last week, in his annual “work report” to the National People's Congress, he warned that the performance in 2009, when China registered 8.7 per cent growth, did not mark a fundamental improvement. There was still “insufficient internal impetus driving economic growth,” he said, alluding to the reliance on state-led stimulus. Earlier, he had acknowledged concerns about asset bubbles, likening property markets in some big cities to a “wild horse”.
That leaves the government with the tricky task of trying to rev up consumption even as it grapples with the contradictions of overheating in some parts of an economy that, overall, is still reliant on stimulus. For the moment, fiscal policy will remain expansionary, with the budget deficit forecast to rise from 2.2 per cent of gross domestic product to 2.8 per cent. But approval of new infrastructure investment will be strictly controlled, signalling a slowing down of the credit expansion through which much infrastructure spending has been financed. On Saturday, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the central bank, also held out the prospect of a gradual revaluation of the renminbi, referring to its peg against the dollar as a “special” measure. Though no panacea, a stronger renminbi could help China's rebalancing by making consumers richer in dollar terms.
Gradualism in these tricky areas is inevitable. But one area where there has been much talk and not enough action is reform of the hukou residency permits. These divide Chinese citizens into rural and urban inhabitants. Most of the roughly 200m migrants working in the urban centres cannot register as city residents, thus depriving them of schooling for their children, income support and subsidised housing. Mr Wen has given little detail about how Beijing intends to tackle this issue. China needs a plan to allow people to become permanent city residents. That would help consumption by putting tens of millions of people on a sounder social footing, removing some of the anxiety that makes them prone to save. Like currency revaluation, reforming the unjust and outdated hukou system is not a panacea. But, properly managed, it would be the right thing to do.
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001031608
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