Usually, what kind of fiscal and monetary policies a country implements at a certain stage of economic development depends on the macroeconomic operation. Looking at the course of China's macroeconomic policy, from the "double easing" policy that has been implemented since the founding of the People's Republic of China to the "one positive and one steady" macro policy that has been implemented for nearly seven years since the end of 1998, and then to the "double steady" policy that the Chinese government began to implement in 2005, our government is proceeding from reality, combining the situation of China's domestic economic development and the changes of international economic dynamics, and sizing up the situation. Due to the reversal of the international economic situation and the role of macro-control policies that have been introduced, China's economic growth rate will be adjusted back to a certain extent, and the imbalance of international payments will be alleviated. At the same time, the export growth rate will be adjusted back, but the range is limited. Under the continuous effect of the expectation of RMB appreciation, although the liquidity of banks has eased compared with last year, it is still abundant, and money and credit are still in a relatively relaxed environment. Against this background, it seems a scientific choice for China to continue to implement macroeconomic policies in 2007.
However, as far as the current economic situation is concerned, there are three major contradictions affecting the macroeconomic decision-making of our government and the sound and rapid development of our economy. First of all, the problem of over-investment caused by excessive social savings. From 2000 to the end of 2006 1 1.06, the balance of RMB savings deposits in Chinese financial institutions increased from 1238044 billion yuan to 334361.40 billion yuan, an increase of 1.7 times, with an average annual growth of/kloc. Of the increase in savings, 45.3% came from the savings increased by urban and rural residents, and another 3 1. 1% came from the savings increased by enterprises. In other words, the rapid growth of savings in China is mainly caused by the behavior of residents and enterprises. On the one hand, residents spend too much income on savings, which is related to the imperfection of China's social security welfare system. On the other hand, the savings of financial institutions mainly come from high-income people, and the proportion of low-and middle-income people is not high. Enterprises spend too much money on savings instead of investing in innovation activities. On the one hand, it is related to China's industrial policy. On the other hand, most of these savings are increased by large and medium-sized enterprises, while small and medium-sized enterprises still lack funds. With the continuous and substantial growth of social savings, the pressure on financial institutions is increasing. With the continuous expansion of deposit balance, financial institutions should do everything possible to "digest" these extra funds. As a result, a large amount of credit funds were invested in the construction field through various channels, resulting in a new round of investment overheating and repeated construction. In addition, the excessive growth of savings leads to over-investment, which actually has a crowding-out effect on consumption, because under certain capital conditions, over-investment will inevitably crowd out and restrain consumption.
Secondly, the problem of overcapacity caused by excessive industrial growth. At present, in the operation of national economy, on the one hand, more and more social funds flow into financial institutions, on the other hand, the growth rate of social consumption is much lower than that of industrial products. As a result, China's economic development has encountered another contradiction, namely, the overcapacity of industrial products. According to the truth, since 2000, the growth of social consumption in China has not been slow, and there is a trend of accelerated growth since 2004. For example, from 2004 to 2006, the average growth rate of social consumption was above 13%. However, under the constant stimulation of investment, China's industrial production grew faster. For example, from 2000 to 2005, the national output of household washing machines, refrigerators, color TVs, air conditioners, microcomputers, mobile phones and automobiles increased by 1.05 times, 1.33 times and 1. 165438 respectively. In 2006, the above-mentioned industrial products still grew at a relatively fast speed. When industrial products continue to grow faster than domestic consumption, they are forced to form a large number of exports, which not only intensifies international trade friction, but also forms a huge trade surplus, resulting in more and more foreign exchange reserves, which in turn requires the supply scale of M to increase continuously.
Third, the unfair distribution of social income caused by the widening income gap. At present, the income gap in China is expanding in an all-round way, not only between urban and rural residents and between regions, but also between different groups in urban and rural areas. From 2000 to 2005, the income gap between urban and rural residents expanded from 2.79 times to 3.22 times, and in 2006 to 3.4 times. If social welfare items such as medical care, pension, education subsidies and housing accumulation fund for urban residents are taken into account, the income gap between urban and rural residents will be even greater; Between regions, the gap between the provinces with the lowest income in the western region and the provinces with the highest income in the eastern region is also widening. For example, the income of civil servants in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other provinces and cities is three to four times that of Guizhou. Within cities and towns, from 2000 to 2005, the ratio of the lowest income to the highest income of urban residents expanded from 65,438+0: 3.6 to 65,438+0: 5.7, and the gap between the income of needy households and the income of the highest households reached 65,438+0 times. The industry gap is even greater. The average annual salary of employees in public institutions is about 1.5 million, that of general enterprises is about 1.0 million, that of large enterprises is 50,000-60,000, and that of energy, telecommunications and financial enterprises can exceed 1.0 million. The same is true of the income gap in rural areas. From 2000 to 2005, the ratio of farmers' lowest income to their highest income increased from 1:6.47 to 1:7.26 by the method of five equal parts. At present, the income gap of China residents has reached a considerable disparity, and the Gini coefficient has exceeded 0.4. In 2005, the monthly income of nearly 20 million people in China was in 200 yuan, and the annual income of nearly 40 million farmers was below 800 yuan. They often make ends meet and have to borrow money to survive. In recent years, the essence of China's consumption shortage is structural consumption shortage, which is mainly manifested in urban low-income groups and rural residents. At present, the contradiction we are facing is that, on the one hand, the income distribution in cities and towns is concentrated in high-income groups, while the marginal consumption tendency of high-income groups is declining, and they will deposit more and more income into financial institutions; On the other hand, urban low-income groups and farmers have a high marginal propensity to consume, but they have no money to spend. How to distribute the fruits of economic and social development fairly to different income groups, especially low-and middle-income groups and farmers, so that they can improve their income level and increase their consumption is the key to China's macro-policy at present.
From the perspective of economic operation, how to avoid or eliminate the problems of excess savings, overcapacity and widening income gap in economic operation is not only a problem that needs to be faced in the near future macro-control, but also a problem that needs to be considered in the long-term national policy and institutional arrangements. At present, China's monetary and financial policies are still relatively loose and fiscal policies are relatively tight, which is not conducive to controlling the further excess of industrial capacity and expanding domestic consumption. Therefore, considering the changes in the situation, we should adhere to the idea of "overall stability and moderate fine-tuning" and adjust the current combination of monetary policy and fiscal policy according to the changes in the macroeconomic situation under the current policy stance.
Specific adjustment suggestions:
The first is to adjust monetary policy. First of all, there is still room for China's current monetary policy regulation, which can further increase the deposit reserve ratio at an appropriate time and correspondingly increase the loan interest rate; Secondly, financial institutions should adjust the use structure of funds as soon as possible, continuously reduce the proportion of investment loans, correspondingly increase the proportion of consumer loans, introduce relevant supporting policies, and actively promote housing mortgage loans, consumer loans for automobile appliances, education loans, wedding and funeral loans, etc. Encourage residents to borrow and consume; Thirdly, in order to alleviate the contradiction of excess liquidity of funds, on the one hand, we should broaden residents' investment channels through financial system reform and institutional innovation, and reduce the pressure of bank deposit expansion; On the other hand, it is necessary to accelerate the development of diversified capital markets, such as expanding the scale of medium and long-term and short-term bond issuance, innovating financing channels for high-tech enterprises, actively developing financial derivatives, and exploring and supporting the development of private financial institutions. In addition, enterprises should be encouraged to go abroad. While supporting China enterprises to expand their foreign investment, commercial banks can also increase their investment in international financial markets by financing overseas on behalf of customers, so as to alleviate the pressure of excess liquidity and foreign exchange reserve growth brought by the trade surplus and FDI inflow to the central bank.
The second is to adjust fiscal policy. Fiscal policy should be adjusted from the current tight state (reducing the scale and deficit of national debt issuance) to a flexible state, and appropriately expand government investment and consumption. On the one hand, governments at all levels should further increase the poverty alleviation expenditure for urban low-income people, further expand the coverage of assistance, continue to improve their minimum living security level, continuously raise the salary level of government employees, and continue to invest in public infrastructure conducive to consumption; On the other hand, through the establishment of a special fund for building a new socialist countryside, farmers' consumption will be promoted. The special fund is raised from three aspects: first, a certain proportion is set aside (for example, 00% of the annual fiscal increment of 65438+); Second, issue special treasury bonds for new rural construction every year (for example, 50 billion yuan per year); Third, cut out a dollar from the annual land transfer fee. These three funds will be tied together to form a special fund for new rural construction, which will be used for rural infrastructure construction and public services, support the construction of agricultural and rural production capacity, reduce farmers' survival and development costs, increase farmers' income and stimulate consumption.
Third, state-owned and holding enterprises have to spend part of their profits to finance every year. In recent years, a large part of enterprise savings deposits are state-owned enterprise deposits, and most of these deposits come from profits. At present, under the existing institutional conditions, the profits of many state-owned enterprises largely depend on the original financial input and industry monopoly, and these profits belong to enterprises, which obviously forms excessive corporate savings and creates a source for further investment. Therefore, no matter from the financial investment return or the principle of fairness, state-owned and holding enterprises should pay part of their profits to the finance every year, and the state will use this part of the profits for public infrastructure construction and public services to improve the production and living environment of urban and rural residents, reduce their survival and development costs and increase their relative purchasing power.
The fourth is to improve the social security system and reduce the expected expenditure of urban and rural residents. At present, urban residents have a low propensity to consume and a high propensity to save, which is closely related to China's education, medical care, pension, unemployment assistance, poverty alleviation and housing system reform. People tighten spot consumption and save for the future, which is the result of the lagging reform of China's social security system. We must accelerate the pace of social security system reform, eliminate the conflicts and constraints of existing social security system laws and regulations, and further improve the framework of social security system reform. Market-oriented should continue to adhere to market-oriented reform, and non-market-oriented should be designed according to the principle of public service. Many social security policies that affect residents' consumption should be cleaned up in time. At present, the key is to establish and improve policies on public education, public medical care, employment assistance, poverty alleviation and old-age security, increase government support for these aspects, expand the scope of benefits for urban and rural residents, and eliminate their worries.
Fifth, we must start to solve the long-term problems in economic development. At present, many problems in China's economic operation are caused by long-term problems. It is not enough to rely on short-term regulation, but also to solve long-term problems. As we all know, for a long time, China's economic development was mainly achieved through investment and export orientation, and it was correct for us to implement this strategy in the past. However, according to the experience and lessons of Japan and Taiwan Province Province, if this strategy is not changed in time after the economic development reaches a certain stage, it will inevitably bring many difficult contradictions to the economic operation. Therefore, to solve the problems of overheated investment, overcapacity and excess liquidity of funds, we must also start with long-term institutional arrangements. For example, on the one hand, we should reform the current fiscal and taxation system, adjust the relationship between financial power and administrative power between the central and local governments, and transfer some of the current administrative power to the central government according to the principle of matching financial power and administrative power, such as compulsory education, public health, resource management, environmental governance, etc., and at the same time transfer some financial power to local governments to reduce the impulse of local governments at all levels to seize investment and projects; On the other hand, we should change the policy arrangements to encourage exports, unify the tax policies of domestic and foreign-funded enterprises, gradually cancel the export tax rebate policy arrangements, moderately accelerate the reform of the RMB exchange rate system, and appropriately increase the floating range of the RMB exchange rate. At the same time, in the process of accelerating the reform of RMB exchange rate system, it is necessary to establish a strict supervision system, be highly vigilant and supervise the inflow of international speculative capital into China, and prevent malicious speculation of RMB from interfering with the exchange rate reform process in China.
In addition, China should learn from the experience of developed countries, not only to standardize the initial distribution policies and institutional arrangements, but also to further use redistribution means such as taxation, financial transfer payments, donations and subsidies to adjust the excessive income gap formed in the initial distribution stage, and finally achieve the goal of "lifting, expanding and lowering".