英文原文

BEC商务考试中多设计商务背景，有专家建议可以精读 The Ecomomists这样的英语杂志，这样对完形填空和改错都很有帮助。

Bamboo shoots of recovery
Signs that a giant fiscal stimulus is starting to work

THE Chinese consider eight to be a lucky number because it sounds like the word meaning “prosperity”. And luck, combined with a massive fiscal stimulus, may yet help the government to achieve its growth target of 8% in 2009. Earlier this year, most economists thought such growth was impossible at a time of deep global recession, but some are now nudging up their forecasts.

At first sight, the GDP figures published on April 16th were disappointing. China’s growth rate fell to 6.1% in the year to the first quarter, less than half its pace in mid-2007. On closer inspection, however, the economy is starting to perk up.

Comparing the first quarter with the previous three months, GDP rose at an estimated annualised rate of around 6%, after nearly stalling in the fourth quarter (see chart). By March the economy was gaining more speed, with the year-on-year increase in industrial production rising to 8.3% from an average of 3.8% in the previous two months. Retail sales were 16% higher in real terms than a year ago, and fixed investment has soared by 30%, signalling that the government’s infrastructure-led stimulus is starting to work.
Exports, on the other hand, tumbled by 17% in the year to March and global demand is widely expected to remain weak this year. This is the main reason why some economists expect GDP growth of “only” 5% for 2009 as a whole. But the gloomier forecasts tend both to overstate the importance of exports and to understate the size of the government’s stimulus.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, China’s sharp economic slowdown was not triggered by a collapse in exports to America. Its growth began to slow in 2007, well before exports stumbled, driven by a collapse in the property market and construction.

This was the result of tight credit policies aimed at preventing the economy from overheating. The global slump dealt a second blow late last year, but China is less dependent on exports than is commonly believed. Exports account for nearly 40% of GDP but they use a lot of imported components, and only make up about 18% of domestic value-added. Less than 10% of jobs are in the export sector.

If a collapse in domestic demand led China’s economy down, it can also help lead it up again. Not only is China’s fiscal stimulus one of the biggest in the world this year, but the government’s ability to “ask” state-owned firms to spend and state banks to lend means that the government’s measures are being implemented more rapidly than elsewhere. To take one example, railway investment has tripled over the past year.

Only about 30% of the government’s 4 trillion yuan ($585 billion) infrastructure package is being funded by the government.

Most of the rest will be financed by bank lending, which had already soared by 30% in the 12 months to March, twice its pace last summer. JPMorgan thinks that this credit and investment boom could lift GDP growth to an annualised pace of over 10% in each of the next three quarters.

Jonathan Anderson, an economist at UBS, argues that the property market could be as important as the fiscal stimulus in determining China’s fate. After falling sharply last year, housing sales rose by 36% in value in the year to March. Housing starts are still down, but if sales continue to strengthen, construction could pick up in the second half of 2009. That would also help to support consumption: about half of China’s job losses among migrant workers have been in the building industry.

If construction does recover and infrastructure spending continues to rise, then even if exports remain weak, China could see growth of close to 8% this year—impressive stuff when rich economies are expected to contract by 4-5%. There are growing concerns about the quality of that growth, however. The World Bank estimates that government-influenced spending will account for three-quarters of China’s GDP growth this year. The clear risk is that politically directed lending creates more overcapacity, poor rates of return and future bad loans for banks.

These are valid concerns. But Andy Rothman, an economist at CLSA, a brokerage, reckons that state-owned firms mainly plan to increase their spending on upgrading existing production facilities, rather than expanding capacity. Also, about half of the increase in investment is on public infrastructure. This will inevitably include some white elephants but, in a poor country, the return on infrastructure investment is generally high. There is no need to build “bridges to nowhere” when two-fifths of villages lack a paved road to the nearest market town.

What about the risks to banks? The last time they were forced to support the government’s stimulus policy, during Asia’s financial crisis in 1998, Chinese banks were left with large non-performing loans. Bad loans will rise again this time, but Tao Wang, also at UBS, argues that banks are in a stronger position than in 1998. China is one of the few countries in the world where bank credit has fallen relative to GDP over the past five years. Banks have an average loan-to-deposit ratio of only 67%, low by international standards, and less than 5% of banks’ loans are non-performing, down from 40% in 1998.

The biggest task for China is to find a new engine for future growth. It cannot rely on exports, nor can the investment stimulus be sustained for long. Without stronger consumer spending, China’s growth will be much slower than in recent years.

Reforms to improve health care and the social safety net will take many years to encourage people to save less.

Andy Xie, an independent economist based in Shanghai, suggests that the quickest way to boost consumption would be for the government to distribute the shares that it holds in state-owned enterprises to households, and to force those firms to pay larger dividends. But the authorities in Beijing are unlikely to take his advice. How else could they lean on big firms to support the economy in times like these?

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中国人认为八是个幸运数字，因为它念起来像“发”。这样的好运，伴随着大规模的财政刺激，有可能帮助政府在2009年达到8%的增长目标。

年初，大多数经济学家认为在全球经济严重不景气的时期，这样的增长是不可能的，但是现在他们之中有一些向上调整了他们的预测。

乍一看，在4月16日公布的GDP数据是令人失望的，第一季度中国经济增长率为6.1%，不到2007年间的一半。仔细研究之下，经济已经开始复苏。与去年第四季度经济几乎停止增长相比，今年第一季度的GDP年化增速约为6%（见图表）。GDP年增长速度估计在6%左右。三月份经济增长更为迅速，工业产出同比增长了8.3%，高于前两个月的平均水平3.8%。零售额同比增长16%，固定资产投资额已经超过了30%，这些信号表明，政府的以基础设施建设为首的经济刺激计划开始发挥作用。

另一方面，广泛认为今年全球需求将持续疲软，今年3月中国出口总额同比下降了17%。这是为什么许多经济学家预测GDP在2009年的全部增长率“只有”5%的原因。但这种消极的预期，在夸大出口重要性的同时，给政府刺激打了折扣。

与习惯性的思维相反，中国急速发展的经济减速不是由对美国出口崩溃引起的。它开始于2007年，在出口下降之前，房地产市场和建筑业已经开始了崩溃。那是为防止经济过热而采取的紧缩性信贷政策的结果。去年末应对全球经济不景气的又一个打击中，中国并不像人们通常认为的那样依赖出口。出口占GDP差不多40%，但是过程中使用了很多进口部件，只占国内增加值的18％。出口带来的就业岗位也不足总量的10％。

如果是内需的缺乏引起中国经济的衰退，它也能帮助经济重新发展。中国财政刺激不仅是全世界最大的之一，而且政府“要求”国企花费，“要求”国有银行贷款，这意味着政府的措施能比其他地方更快的实现。举个例子，铁路系统的投资额已经是去年的三倍。

只有大约30%的政府四万亿元（$5850亿）基础设施一揽子计划由政府专款支持。大多数其余资金将由银行贷款支持，从去年12月到今天三月，已经上涨了30%，是去年夏天速度的两倍。摩根大通认为这种信贷和投资热潮在未来三个季度会提升GDP的年增长率超过10%。

Jonathan Anderson，瑞士银行的一位经济学家，表明房地产市场和财政刺激一样，都决定着中国的命运。经过去年急剧下降之后，在今年三月住房销售增长了36%。房屋开工仍然在下降，但如果销售额继续加强，建筑业可以在2009年下半年得到发展。这也有助于支持消费：大约一半的中国失业者是农民工，这些农民工属于建筑行业。

如果建筑业恢复，基础设施建设继续投入，即使出口依然薄弱，也能使今年中国经济增长接近8%——令人印象深刻的是同富裕的经济体的合约预期预期收缩4-5%。然而，令人担忧的是这种增长的质量如何。世界银行估计政府影响花费是中国三个季度GDP增长的原因。明显的风险就是政治上直接的引导会产生生产能力过剩，低的投资回报率还有银行未来的呆账。

这种担忧是有根据的。但是Andy Rothman，里昂证券的一位经济学家，一位券商，认为国企主要计划增加用于升级现有的生产设备，而不是扩大产能。同时在基础设施建设上增加大约一半的投资额。这将不可避免的包括一些累赘物，在一个贫穷的国家，投资收益率通常很高。当五分之二的村庄缺乏去集市的路时，没有必要担心无用的工程。

银行的风险是什么呢？上一次他们被迫支持政府的刺激政策是1998年亚洲金融危机的时候，中国银行留下了大量的坏账。不良贷款也是这次的风险，但是王涛，工作在瑞士银行，认为现在银行比1998年时有更有利的地位。过去五年间，世界上没有几个国家的银行借贷低于GDP增速，中国就是其中之一。银行的平均贷存比只有67%，低于国际标准；不良贷款率不到5%，而1998年时这一数字是40%。

为了将来的发展，中国最大的任务是找到未来经济增长的新动力。依赖出口和投资刺激都不能将发展维持很久。没有了更强大的消费性支出，中国的发展会比最近几年慢得多。改良卫生保健和社会安全网络将在很多年中鼓励着人们更少的储蓄。

来自上海的独立经济学家谢国忠，建议说，刺激消费最快的方法就是政府把自己手中国有企业的股份分给个人，并迫使这些企业加大分红力度。但是北京的政府官员不可能接受他的建议。现在不正是时候依赖这些大企业来支撑经济吗？