At present, my country is facing the dual challenges of fighting the epidemic and stabilizing the economy. How to balance the two?
In the past week, Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council mentioned the problem of “surpassing expectations” in several meetings. He held a meeting on the economic situation on April 11. The leaders said at the symposium that they should be highly vigilant against unexpected changes in the international and domestic environment, further increasing downward pressure on the economy, and face up to and resolutely respond to new challenges. The National Standing Committee held on April 13 decided to use monetary policy tools such as RRR cuts in a timely manner to reduce comprehensive financing costs in response to changes in the current situation.
It can be seen that since the current round of epidemic prevention and control, in order to prevent the spread of the epidemic, some places have begun to “block roads”, resulting in difficulties in road transportation. Road transportation is responsible for more than 70% of the freight and passenger traffic in the whole society, and is the “big artery” that supports economic and social development. In some places, the registration of trucks is simply used as the basis for restricting traffic, and some truck drivers whose registration is in medium and high-risk areas are advised to return, etc., resulting in blockage of the passage of some trucks. If the “large arteries” are blocked, the economy is bound to be severely affected.
Wu Chungeng, director of the Highway Bureau of the Ministry of Transport, said in an interview with CCTV that in the past month, due to the epidemic, the national highway traffic has dropped significantly. Taking April 11 as an example, the national highway traffic was more than 18 million vehicles, a 40% drop from the same period in 2021.
PMI, the leading indicator of economic prosperity, also issued an “alarm”. In March, the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) was 49.5%, down 0.7 percentage points from the previous month; The manufacturing business activity index was 48.4%, a decrease of 3.2 percentage points from the previous month; the composite PMI output index in March was 48.8%, a decrease of 2.4 percentage points from the previous month; all the three major indexes fell below the line of prosperity and decline.
Challenge: Balancing Epidemic Prevention and Control and Stabilizing the Economy
“The important task at this stage is to stabilize employment and prices to support economic operation within a reasonable range, To this end, an effective balance needs to be struck between epidemic prevention and control and economic stability.” Wu Yiping, a professor at the School of Public Economics and Management of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said in an interview with reporters.
Zhao Qinghe, a senior statistician at the Service Industry Survey Center of the National Bureau of Statistics, said that in March, both production and demand fell simultaneously. Affected by this round of epidemic, some enterprises in some areas temporarily reduced production and stopped production, and affected the normal production and operation of related upstream and downstream enterprises.At the same time, the recent international geopolitical conflict has intensified, some companies have reduced or canceled export orders, and manufacturing production activities and market demand have weakened.
In order to alleviate the financial pressure of enterprises, governments at all levels have introduced policies such as tax reduction and fee reduction, tax credits and tax refunds, and rent deferred reductions and exemptions. , strengthen financing guarantees and other means to strengthen financial support.
Gong Yinghua, a master tutor of Shanghai National Accounting Institute and deputy secretary-general of the Institute of Public Policy and Governance of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, told reporters, “We should further follow up on policy issues. The implementation effect, closely track the implementation of the policy, and at the same time improve the efficiency of policy implementation, to ensure that various tax rebates, tax reductions and fee reduction policies are easy to operate, easy to implement, and effective as soon as possible, so as to stimulate the vitality of market players to the greatest extent.”
Zhong Shihu, a master tutor at Shanghai National Accounting Institute, suggested that the unemployment insurance fund should be considered to give employees appropriate special subsidies for the epidemic, so as to stabilize their jobs.
Ye Fan, chief macro analyst of Southwest Securities Research and Development Center, told reporters, “With sufficient material security, companies can be encouraged to adopt a closed production model and implement Classified and differentiated epidemic prevention, tax reduction and exemption for industries involving contact consumption, and periodic targeted subsidies for practitioners who have been greatly impacted.”
For this In order to solve the logistics and other problems in the prevention and control of the epidemic, Wu Yiping suggested that during the period of closed management of cities under the epidemic, supervision agencies at all levels should strengthen the supervision of power, and local governments should open up “appeals and suggestions channels”, take the online mass line, and implement A two-pronged strategy to avoid abuse of power will ultimately affect the orderly recovery of the overall economy.
Zhong Huiyong, associate professor of the School of Finance of Shanghai University of International Business and Economics and deputy director of the Institute of Financial Development, pointed out that the anti-epidemic under the goal of “dynamic clearing” needs to have corresponding measures Flexible economic policies. He suggested to further strengthen the research on relevant “dynamic clearing” economic policies, strengthen the flexibility of economic policies, and try to avoid various forms of “one-size-fits-all” policies to reduce the impact of the epidemic on the economy.
Zhong Huiyong suggested that, through the Internet, conduct micro-investigations on business operation problems and future expected problems during the epidemic as soon as possible, and obtain first-hand information about business, employment, etc. comprehensive information.
“Only know what the current business is facingDifficulties, can take corresponding countermeasures to help enterprises solve practical problems, stabilize the economy and employment. ” said Zhong Huiyong.
One-time financial subsidies can be issued to specific industries
The Yangtze River Delta is the region with the most active economic development, the highest degree of openness and the strongest innovation ability in China One, the development of the enterprise has a strong joint effect. Affected by the epidemic in Shanghai, companies in the Yangtze River Delta region also encountered difficulties to varying degrees.
Ye Yongqing, a partner of King & Wood Mallesons, said in an interview with reporters that by further strengthening fiscal and taxation policies, it will help small businesses in the Yangtze River Delta and even the whole country affected by the new round of the epidemic. A better financial support for micro-enterprises is very important and meaningful.
“It’s more important to discuss how to support the business over a period of time, give them effective support, and enable them to quickly deploy resources when the economy recovers , forming a positive economic cycle.” Ye Yongqing said that in this sense, the deployment of fiscal and taxation policies should be fiscal policy first, taking into account the impact of time; tax policy follow-up to establish stable expectations;
Previously, the central government has introduced tax reduction and tax refund policies, including tax rebates, which have achieved remarkable results.
Ye Yongqing said that under the current economic situation, it is difficult for many companies to get incentives through tax policies, because there have been major difficulties in their operations. Under the circumstance that the business status is unsustainable, it is naturally difficult to rely on tax incentives to play a greater role.
Based on this, Ye Yongqing suggested that the fiscal policy should consider a strong stimulus orientation, including providing emergency financial resources (emergency loans or large-scale interest discounts), and for specific In important industries (such as the logistics industry), a one-time financial subsidy can be implemented to ease the financial pressure of the operation of the enterprise and avoid the bankruptcy or bankruptcy of the enterprise due to the rupture of the capital chain. “One way that can be learned is the way of discovering golden coupons abroad: considering the current situation in China, personal consumption is not the most important reason for the impact of this time on enterprises. The bigger problem comes from the influence of the supply chain, from fiscal stimulus. From the perspective of tax policy follow-up, Ye Yongqing can consider giving financial subsidies (through cash coupons or long-term purchases) to enterprises at one time.”
He said that in the next six months to one year, it is necessary to further clarify the corresponding tax reduction and exemption policies to form stable expectations.
Appropriate increase in supply should be used to break high commodity prices
Regarding the issue of commodity market prices during the epidemic, experts said that they should rely on the release of part of the transportation capacity to ensure To alleviate the current “astronomical price” phenomenon caused by the imbalance of supply and demand.
Zhong Huiyong pointed out that it is necessary to do a good job in monitoring the price signals of the market mechanism to fully guarantee the supply of residents’ livelihood materials. You can compare the current prices of various commodities by establishing a historical price data of related important commodities in the same period. If the current commodity price exceeds the fluctuation range of a certain historical price, it is necessary to analyze the reasons for the abnormal price fluctuations, adjust the corresponding economic policies, and avoid large fluctuations in the prices of relevant important commodities.
Regarding the difficulty of purchasing materials in closed management areas, Wu Yiping said that a whitelist system for riders and a whitelist system for merchants could be implemented, and governments at all levels would provide financial subsidies to riders and merchants , strengthen the epidemic prevention testing of riders and merchants, ensure that living materials are “available”, “available” and “used well”, and avoid secondary injuries that may occur due to closed management. This move is also conducive to effectively boosting consumption and Stable jobs and employment.
Zhong Shihu pointed out that in order to solve the problem of difficulty in buying vegetables, the problem of poor supply channels should be solved. It is necessary to balance the relationship between “precise prevention and control” and “guaranteing smooth access”, to remove excessive logistics and traffic obstacles, and to deliver civilian materials to residents through a full-process closed-loop management. At the same time, it is also necessary to strengthen humane care for truck drivers. . In response to the problem of sky-high errand fees, Zhong Shihu believes that the problem to be solved is the shortage of delivery staff. It is suggested that part of the capacity of the prevention area can be released, so that residents with negative nucleic acid or antigen test results in the past 14 days can freely choose to act as At the same time, strengthen the health monitoring of this group, which can also allow difficult groups who lack sources of income during the epidemic to obtain a certain income.