What do you think of China’s economic report card in 2021? What challenges will China’s economy face in 2022? What will the “troika” show? How to deal with the decline of birth population?
The National Bureau of statistics released China’s economic annual report for 2021 on the 17th. Focusing on the above focus issues, the “China new observation” column of chinanews.com interviewed a number of experts for interpretation.
What do you think of China’s economic report card in 2021?
According to the data, in 2021, the GDP reached 114367 billion yuan, breaking the 110 trillion mark, the GDP growth rate reached 8.1%, and the expected target of more than 6% for the whole year was achieved.
Wen bin, chief researcher of China China Minsheng Banking Corp.Ltd(600016) , pointed out that on the whole, China’s economic development and epidemic prevention and control will remain a global leader in 2021, and the main work objectives have been achieved.
“China’s economy has handed over a good answer.” Yao Jingyuan, a special researcher of the Counselor’s office of the State Council and former chief economist of the National Bureau of statistics, believes that despite the complex problems, difficulties and challenges, China’s economy has made good achievements in 2021, the main indicators have been completed beyond expectations, and is full of internal driving force and vitality.
Yao Jingyuan pointed out that judging the economic situation mainly depends on the four indicators. First, looking at the economic growth rate, 8.1% belongs to higher than expected growth, which is hard won and ranks among the top among the world’s major economies.
Second, looking at employment, there was considerable employment pressure last year, but the annual urban employment increased by 12.69 million, exceeding the expected target of more than 11 million. The annual average unemployment rate in the national urban survey was 5.1%, lower than the expected target of about 5.5%.
Third, looking at prices, inflation is serious all over the world. The inflation rate in the United States has reached the highest point in 40 years, but China’s prices remain low and stable. They will rise by 0.9% in 2021, meeting the regulation target of about 3%.
Fourth, looking at the balance of payments, last year, the trade in import and export goods exceeded 39 trillion yuan, with a growth rate of 21.4%, equivalent to 6.05 trillion US dollars, the highest in history. The balance of foreign exchange reserves is 3250.2 billion US dollars, ranking first in the world.
what challenges will China’s economy face in 2022?
“From the perspective of trend, GDP in the four quarters of 2021 increased by 18.3%, 7.9%, 4.9% and 4% respectively year-on-year, reflecting the increased downward pressure on the economy.” Wen Bin said that in 2022, there are still many challenges in economic development. There are many uncertainties in the global economy, inflation continues to rise, and the policy shift of developed countries may lead to greater recovery imbalance and volatility impact. China’s economy is facing triple pressure, and the pressure on economic growth is not small.
Yao Jingyuan believes that the central economic work conference pointed out that China’s economic development is facing triple pressures of shrinking demand, supply shock and weakening expectations. In the operation of the whole national economy, the growth of domestic demand is weaker than that of external demand, the profits of middle and downstream enterprises are weaker than those of the upstream, and the operation difficulties of small and micro enterprises are greater than those of large and medium-sized enterprises.
How to deal with it? Wen bin suggested that in order to ensure that the economy operates within a reasonable range, we must further expand domestic demand and stabilize external demand. In terms of policies, policies supporting steady growth have been introduced and implemented in succession. Policies with obvious expected effects such as tax reduction, fee reduction and reserve requirement reduction have been implemented and are expected to move forward.
Wen bin believes that in the next stage, macro policies should further form a joint force. On the one hand, on the basis of making good use of the policies already issued, it is still necessary to launch more forms of structural policies and provide accurate support at key time points such as the increase of downward pressure on the economy and the increase of difficulties in key areas and weak links; On the other hand, we should deal with various internal and external risks and shocks and create a safe and stable environment for economic recovery.
what will the “troika” show?
As the “troika” driving economic growth, consumption, investment and export have different performances in 2021, and the export performance is more brilliant.
In 2021, final consumption expenditure, total capital formation and net exports of goods and services will drive economic growth by 5.3, 1.1 and 1.7 percentage points respectively, and their contribution rates to economic growth will be 65.4%, 13.7% and 20.9% respectively. In the fourth quarter, final consumption expenditure, total capital formation and net exports of goods and services drove economic growth by 3.4, – 0.5 and 1.0 percentage points respectively, and their contribution rates to economic growth were 85.3%, – 11.6% and 26.4% respectively.
“Compared with the years before the epidemic, the contribution rate of net exports increased significantly, the contribution rate of consumption increased steadily, slightly, and the contribution rate of investment decreased significantly. China’s exports maintained a high growth mainly due to strong foreign demand.” Wen bin judged that in the near future, major projects around the country will focus on the disclosure of plans and commencement after the year, and it is expected that infrastructure investment will accelerate this year. From the perspective of trend, consumption increased by only 1.7% in December. Recently, the epidemic situation in some regions rebounded. China has found cases of infection with Omicron strain, which has formed certain constraints on service consumption and offline consumption.
Yao Jingyuan suggested that in 2022, we should take the expansion of domestic demand, especially the expansion of Chinese consumption, as a key breakthrough, study how to expand consumption in an all-round way, give play to the basic role of consumption in economic development, and make it change from contraction to expansion.
“Foreign trade data is one of the most brilliant macroeconomic data in 2021.” Zhang Jianping, deputy director of the academic committee of the Research Institute of the Ministry of Commerce, judged that China’s foreign trade is expected to continue to grow steadily in 2022 thanks to national policy support. Although facing the challenges of epidemic situation, high prices of bulk commodity raw materials, high international shipping prices and high base, it is expected that the “carriage” of trade this year will contribute to the positive growth of the whole economy.
how to deal with the decline of birth population?
In the 2021 economic annual report, the population issue has attracted more attention. The data show that the population in 2021 will increase by 480000 over the end of the previous year. The annual birth population was 10.62 million, and the number of births decreased further.
Feng Wenmeng, director and researcher of the Research Office of the social development research department of the development research center of the State Council, believes that the further decline of the birth population in 2021 is mainly affected by four reasons. In the long run, first, with the increase of residents’ years of education, the increase of employment rate, the promotion of urbanization and the development of socialized services, the public’s concern about family, marriage There have been deep-seated changes in fertility and other concepts, and fertility willingness and fertility rate have decreased compared with previous years; Second, the number of women of childbearing age has decreased, and the resulting birth population will naturally decline. In 2021, the number of women of childbearing age aged 15-49 decreased by about 5 million over the previous year.
In the short term, first, the impact of the epidemic, some people will take the initiative to avoid childbirth during the epidemic in view of the inconvenient medical treatment; Second, in the environment of great downward pressure on the economy, the economic situation of some people has changed, affecting fertility decision-making and delaying family planning.
Feng Wenmeng pointed out that targeted measures need to be introduced to alleviate the downward trend of birth population. We should make multiple efforts to reverse the value orientation of unwilling to marry and bear through the advocacy of ideas and the introduction of support policies, so that young people can marry and bear as much as possible, so as to build a marriage and child-bearing friendly society.
In addition, efforts should be made to eliminate the impact of the epidemic on fertility. For medical needs such as pregnancy preparation and pregnancy examination, all localities should provide better and more convenient services to ensure that the services are safe, convenient and accessible, eliminate everyone’s worries, and prevent young people from delaying fertility due to the impact of the epidemic; At the same time, economic policies need to further increase the support for small and medium-sized enterprises and stimulate their vitality to increase employment opportunities and absorb more employment, so as to improve the income situation of residents. At the same time, we need to strengthen social policies for those with employment difficulties, strengthen social security and social assistance, and increase the sense of peace of mind about childbirth.
