We believe that we should pay close attention to the impact of international oil price fluctuations in the situation of overall energy resources shortage and high inflationary pressure in China.
First of all, China has become an important oil consumer and importer, and it is very dependent on the international oil market. In 2003, China consumed an average of 5,534,800 barrels of crude oil every day, surpassing Japan and becoming the second largest oil consumer in the world after the United States. Imported crude oil was 91126,000 tons, up 3 1.3% year-on-year, and its dependence on foreign countries reached 35.0%, making it the third largest oil importer in the world. From June to September, 2004, 90,365,438+million tons of crude oil were imported, an increase of 34.4%. It is estimated that the annual crude oil import volume will be 65.438+0.2 billion-65.438+0.4 billion tons, an increase of 30-50 million tons. China's crude oil demand growth accounts for 35-40% of the world's crude oil demand growth. The widening gap between domestic supply and demand and the increasing dependence on imports will make China's economy more sensitive to international oil price fluctuations.
Secondly, China's current economic characteristics determine that China's economy will be more negatively affected than that of industrialized countries. At present, China is in a new round of heavy chemical industrialization, with manufacturing industry accounting for a large proportion in the economy, low energy utilization efficiency and obvious characteristics of high energy consumption. The national economy is still heavily dependent on energy. Therefore, the impact of oil prices on the economy will be greater than that of developed countries. At the same time, the connection between China and the world economy is getting closer and closer. If the world economic growth slows down due to the influence of high oil prices, it will inevitably have a direct negative effect on China's foreign trade, and then affect China's economic development.
Third, China's oil market is imperfect, oil reserves are insufficient, and there are certain problems in oil supply security and price security, which will also affect China's ability to resist the risk of international oil price fluctuations.
On the whole, if the international crude oil price continues to rise, the impact on China's economic development cannot be underestimated. Although the impact of oil price on China's economy is not obvious at present, under the background of tight energy resources in China, there are also some problems, such as the aggravation of oil shortage (the shortage of gasoline and diesel sources in the Pearl River Delta region has shown signs of market failure), the increasing pressure of a new round of price adjustment of domestic refined oil products (the country has raised the price of refined oil products three times in 2004) and the increasing pressure of downstream products. The specific impact is reflected in the following aspects: First, it directly affects China's exports. From a macro perspective, if high oil prices persist for a long time, the pace of world economic growth will slow down, and the growth rate of world trade will also decrease accordingly, thus impacting the external environment of China's exports. From the micro level, due to the low bargaining power of China products in the international market, the rising prices of oil and other raw materials increase the costs of export enterprises, but it is difficult for export enterprises to transfer costs by raising prices, which will affect the international competitiveness of export enterprises in China. The second is to increase domestic inflationary pressure. The increase in imported oil prices will inevitably increase the use cost of crude oil and refined oil, drive up the prices of coal and natural gas, and lead to the increase in the costs of downstream chemical products such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polyester and synthetic rubber, which will increase the cost-driven inflationary pressure. At present, with the expansion and increase of investment in fixed assets, the rising prices of such raw materials and fuels are more likely to push up the whole price level. The third is to affect household consumption. High oil prices will inevitably affect residents' consumption of automobiles and related commodities, and the decline in automobile sales in recent months has a certain relationship with the rise in oil prices. Therefore, we should pay attention to the trend of international oil prices as soon as possible, improve China's oil security mechanism, and make effective plans to prevent international oil prices from rising.