External uncertainty persists, and the external environment is still complex and severe
The trend of the epidemic is still uncertain, which interferes with China's economic operation. Although the current market worries about the serious impact of Omicron on the economy have eased, there is still high uncertainty about the trend of covid-19 epidemic in the future, which has an impact on China's economic repair from two aspects: on the one hand, the virus mutation and the external environment that continues to lead to China's economic operation are still facing challenges; On the other hand, if the epidemic situation improves but cannot be eradicated, China will face interference caused by poor epidemic prevention and control policies with foreign countries.
There is still pressure to slow down the global economic recovery, and the economic growth of major economies is slowing down. In 2021, under the background of accelerated vaccination, the global epidemic control showed a good trend as a whole. However, the uncertainty of the epidemic continues to put pressure on the global economy to repair. The IMF, the world bank and other institutions have successively lowered their growth expectations for the global economy and major economies in 2022.
The Federal Reserve has stepped into the interest rate hike cycle and is concerned about the disturbance to China caused by the shift of monetary policy in major global economies. In order to cope with the impact of the epidemic, the world's major economies have adopted unconventional macro policies. With the long-term risk of inflation pressure, the monetary policy of major economies represented by the Federal Reserve has begun to turn. In the short term, China's economy is facing the spillover effect of the exit of European and American loose policies.
Although the big country game has eased, the tone of the game remains unchanged. Geopolitical risks persist under the great changes that have not been seen in a century. Taking into account the changes in the U.S. economic environment and the Biden administration's attitude towards China, under the background of short-term supply exceeding demand in the United States, although the game between major powers has eased, the tone of the game remains unchanged. If the epidemic situation is reversed, the friction between China and the United States in the fields of trade, finance, science and technology may intensify, and China needs to take countermeasures in advance.
Affected by repeated epidemics, structural challenges and existing risks, China's economic operation still faces four major challenges
Repeated outbreaks and the impact of structural adjustment have put downward pressure on potential economic growth. First, the epidemic situation has been superimposed repeatedly, and strict epidemic prevention and control policies have exacerbated the imbalance between consumption and production. Second, the unexpected superposition of various structural policies may cause the potential economic growth to continue to decline.
Growth constraints and risk release pressure brought by the transformation of green economy dominated by "double carbon". The adjustment of energy structure at the carbon peak stage may drag down China's economic growth. At present, there is still a significant positive correlation between China's GDP increment, energy consumption increment and carbon emission increment. If the growth of energy consumption is significantly limited, it will put great pressure on economic growth. In addition, the adjustment of industrial structure under carbon emission reduction may lead to the intensification of industry differentiation and the rise of industry tail risk.
The risk exposure of the real estate industry is accelerating, and the risk transmission still needs to be vigilant in the process of reducing the real estate dependence on economic growth. In 2021, under strict regulation and control, the liquidity risk of the real estate industry intensified, the release of credit risk accelerated, and the number of credit default events increased significantly. Considering the quasi financial attribute of real estate, the close relationship between real estate and local land revenue, and the still high proportion of the real estate industry in the national economy, there are spillover and transmission risks in reducing the dependence of economic growth on real estate.
Debt risk continues to be at a high level, and we should be vigilant against the credit risk at the end of the industry. By the end of 2021, China's macro leverage ratio was 288.2%, which was nearly 10 percentage points lower than that at the end of 2020, but it was still at a high level. In 2022, with the increasing downward pressure on the economy, the steady growth of policies will increase, which may further push up the debt pressure. Under the pressure of reducing leverage and reducing liabilities plus high base debt, the refinancing difficulty of some highly leveraged and tail enterprises may increase, and the credit risk pressure of tail enterprises is still large.
Grasp the "double balance" between steady growth and structural adjustment and risk prevention
In terms of guiding ideology, we should grasp the "double balance" between the stable operation of short-term economy and medium and long-term structural adjustment, risk prevention and steady growth. The profound changes in the internal and external operating environment, such as the repeated global epidemic, the shift of monetary policy in major economies, the transformation of China's new and old kinetic energy and economic structural adjustment, make macroeconomic policies face multiple constraints. Macroeconomic policies should grasp the balance between the stable operation of short-term economy and medium and long-term structural adjustment, as well as the dual balance between stable growth and risk prevention.
Strengthen the coordination and combination of the long-term goal of "carbon peak and carbon neutralization" and the short-term economic growth goal. On the one hand, we should strengthen the correct understanding and grasp the objective law of carbon emission reduction and avoid the supply impact caused by sports "carbon reduction" and other policies and measures. On the other hand, under the background that the traditional infrastructure is close to saturation, increasing investment in the field of new energy will not only help to play the role of infrastructure underpinning and help stabilize growth, but also help to promote the transformation of China's economic structure.
Appropriately improve the tolerance and flexibility of epidemic prevention and control policies, and improve the matching degree between epidemic prevention policies and macro policies. Take "precise prevention and control" as the main standard of epidemic management, and focus on this goal to reduce the cost of epidemic prevention. At the same time, we should improve the matching degree between China's epidemic prevention and control policies and macroeconomic policies, especially increase policy support for the repair of some service industries and end consumption, and promote demand side repair.
Carefully introduce relevant policies with contraction signals, do a good job in counter cyclical and cross cyclical coordination, and improve the coordination level of various policy implementation departments. At present, the factors affecting the weakening of market expectations have not disappeared. The stability of market confidence is the key to reversing the weakening of expectations and slowing down the contraction of demand. Macro policy operation should strengthen expectation management. We should make monetary policy more flexible and fiscal policy more efficiency oriented. We should not only prevent the fallacy of decomposition and avoid the simple division of the overall task among departments, but also add weight at all levels, which makes it difficult for the grass-roots level to bear. We should also prevent synthetic fallacies and excessive easing caused by the superposition of local reasonable policies.
The disposal of major risks still needs to be made in a step-by-step and discretionary manner. The regulatory policies in areas with rapid risk exposure such as real estate should be continuously fine tuned to avoid the risk of disposal risks. The long-term accumulated risks of real estate need to be cleared out in a rhythmic manner and cross cycle arrangements should be made; Avoid risk resonance and superposition between real estate adjustment and financial system and local government debt. We should carefully grasp the landing opportunity of real estate tax and carefully study and judge the optimal tax rate. It is suggested to set up a special fund for the stability of real estate enterprise bond market to provide reasonable guidance to the market. In addition, in the long run, we should cultivate new energy, emerging technologies and other fields as soon as possible, cultivate and develop new economic growth points, and guide the orderly allocation of resources to areas other than real estate.
