Liu Yuanchun, Vice-President of Renmin University of China, interpreted economic data for the first quarter of this year at the “Pushan Forum” online event on April 20. He gave five key words: super epidemic, Chinese plan, periodic results, Super pressure, policy repositioning.


Super outbreak


The first keyword is the super epidemic situation . This new crown epidemic is essentially a new phenomenon faced by mankind in history. Although there have been many super epidemics in the past, as well as many economic crises and financial crises, this time is the first time human beings have been in contact with globalization, networking, In the era of informatization and digitization, in the era of economic globalization and financial globalization, we are facing such a public crisis with strong spread and high mortality. Therefore, its impact on the entire economic system is not limited to one country or region, but global.

The impact on the economic system is not only from the supply side, but also from the demand side, and more importantly because of the epidemic and its spread, including related policies Regulation has a strong uncertainty, and the unexpected impact brought by this uncertainty is unbearable for the current economic and social system.

Therefore, the impact of the super epidemic on the economy in the first quarter is unprecedented, and the super epidemic has become a super shock.


China plan


The second keyword is the Chinese plan. A very important feature of China ’s plan is that it has adopted relatively mild economic hedging and economic assistance policies based on strict epidemic management and control.

Liu Yuanchun believes that this policy combination is based on our national conditions and China ’s system. First of all, the city was closed to Wuhan on January 23, and the central government established an epidemic leadership group, and then adopted a series of strict control measures such as suspension of work, suspension of production, suspension of school, and market, which directly led to the economic and social shutdown effect. During the economic shutdown, economic policies were first subject to the epidemic to stop the war.

Some results have been achieved in the epidemic, especially in early and mid-February, when the country shifted from comprehensive control to a new stage of epidemic management and economic and social co-ordination. In this new stage, China has adopted a series of economic aids in economic policies, and has also adopted hierarchical batches of resumption of production and productionPolicy. It is embodied in the corresponding policy responses launched in a series of fields such as finance, currency, employment, people’s livelihood, and reform.

These policy responses often make people feel that there are some bits and pieces, and there is no overall intuitive feeling. Therefore, in late March and April, after the United States introduced a super hedging policy and Japan and a series of countries introduced their own bailout policies, many people were discussing whether China ’s economic policy was too weak, especially China ’s excessive Focus on economic stimulus and ignore crisis rescue.

This perception may be problematic.

The current fiscal policy has issued a 1.3 trillion plan and more than 500 billion policy expenditures that have been implemented. The main target is the relief of the poor and tax cuts for SMEs Fee reduction and related discount loans.

Monetary policy lowers interest rates and increase interest rates while increasing liquidity. Although it is now a small step, the growth rate of M1, M2, social financing, and loans has risen to a new height at the end of March. According to our statistics, the current support funds issued by the entire monetary policy reached 4.4 trillion.

Under the guidance of people’s livelihood, continue the past “six stability”, and the first stability in the “six stability” is to stabilize employment. Taking job stabilization as the top priority in our current economic and social work, we have introduced five major policies in stabilizing employment. These policies include subsidizing enterprises to protect jobs and production, increasing unemployment relief, increasing skills training for migrant workers, and increasing employment policies for college graduates. Taken together, these work, together with the 20 policies for stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment issued by the Ministry of Commerce, 19 major consumer-promoting policies issued by 23 ministries and commissions led by the National Development and Reform Commission, plus a series of other reform packages Policy, it should be said that the policy we adopted throughout the epidemic was based on the problems faced by China at different stages of targeted implementation.

Why does China not introduce a massive rescue policy?

Liu Yuanchun believes that the various pressures on China ’s economy caused by the impact of the epidemic in China are essentially different from those in Europe and the United States. China’s social structure and its bearing capacity are also significantly different from those of Europe and the United States.

For example, in terms of employment policy, the United States mainly hedges the sharp rise of the unemployed by issuing relief payments. Germany is mainly to help companies to reduce unemployment. Our partyThe case may be between the German plan and the US plan. This is in line with our national conditions. Because of the simple payment of relief funds, a large number of migrant workers in China are not within the scope of unemployment relief, and it is difficult to reach our marginalized groups and those most affected.

Secondly, there will be some relief pressure for relief through the traditional livelihood system. For example, simply granting subsidies to some small and medium-sized enterprises and providing loan support. We found that the biggest problem is that we still have a large number of self-employed businesses. They are very unsound in the tax system and the social security system. It is difficult to reach this part through the traditional system. crowd. Therefore, our assistance to this group of people may be problematic according to the European and American model.

Monetary policy is similar. The first wave of the epidemic’s impact on Europe and the United States was a financial shock, and the first wave of financial shock was a liquidity shock. This determines that the rescue plan in Europe and America must be liquidity hedge. However, the impact on China is mainly in the real economy. There is a big difference between bailout of the real economy and bailout of the financial market.


Phase effectiveness


The third keyword is staged results.

First, the epidemic blockade battle achieved staged victory. The price of strict control is negative 6.8% GDP growth in the first quarter. Does this cost much? According to current forecasts, the economic contraction in the United States and the United Kingdom in the first quarter is likely to exceed double digits. Not only that, the epidemic in Europe and the United States has not been fully controlled, and the worst may be in the second quarter.

Therefore, the understanding of negative 6.8% must be understood from a global perspective and from a historical perspective. From a structural point of view, China’s resumption of production and production is progressing relatively smoothly. The rebound of many parameters in March not only indicated a technical rebound, but also reflected the resilience and resilience of the Chinese economy.

The current staged results confirm that this model of strict control and moderated economic hedging has its adaptability.


Super stress

The fourth keyword is super stress. The next step is to complete the resumption of production and resume work, the economic cycle has begun to normalize, China stillThere will be five downward pressures:

The first is that the epidemic is still in full swing. Our internal anti-rebound and external anti-input will inevitably lead to economic constraints;

Second, the series of sequelae brought by the previous financial turmoil and continued financial turbulence will also occur;

Thirdly, in the process of strict control of various countries, each country ’s economic shutdown and even the global economic shutdown brought about a decline in China ’s external demand, as well as the disruption of our supply chain and industrial chain, which impacted the Chinese economy. We believe that this kind of shock will fully appear in the second quarter;

Fourth, we are still facing cyclical downward pressure, that is, downward trend pressure;

Fifth, the problem of how to normalize the resumption of production and production. At present, a strong driving force is still needed to enable the carriage after the suspension to quickly produce an ice-breaking effect and return to normal.

The superposition of these five pressures will result in the pressure faced by China in the second quarter being greater than the simple economic shutdown pressure in the first quarter.


Policy retargeting

The fifth keyword is policy retargeting.

At the recent Politburo meeting, the past macro policy with “six stability” as the main body was comprehensively positioned.

First of all, from “six stability” to “six guarantees”; second, it requires the research and design of a package of macro-policy initiatives, that is, we need some super response measures to deal with our In the second quarter, we will face downward pressure on the five overlaps in order to achieve a comprehensive well-off and comprehensive poverty alleviation goal. On the one hand, we must focus on people’s livelihood assistance, on the other hand, we must focus on economic stimulus. In the third aspect, we must also focus on reforms that turn crises into opportunities.

Therefore, we should pay close attention to the difficulties faced in the next step and the further improvement of the Chinese plan.

Guarantee employment, livelihood and economic subjects. These are the top three guarantees proposed by the central government. Under the impact of the epidemic, the process of resuming production must be continued. ThisThe core of this is an active employment policy, an active people’s livelihood policy and an active economic main body policy. Seizing our current window period, the external shock has not yet fully arrived, our foundation is not bad, and there is still room for policy.

Then, in terms of consumption, there needs to be a tangible package of policies that can lead everyone ’s expectations. Second, in terms of investment, there must be a series of start-up plans with new and old infrastructure as the main body. The start of private investment is the most important and the key.

These three areas must not only have a proactive fiscal policy, but also a loose monetary policy. As can be seen from the data for the first quarter, in the case where our GDP growth rate is negative 6.8%, the growth rate of financial added value still reaches 6%. In other words, the added value of financial profits is based on the fact that after the economic shutdown, the rent is collected as usual and interest is taken as usual. If there is no loose policy that matches the economy, this misalignment between the real economy and finance must be The biggest obstacle to the normalization of the economic cycle. Therefore, monetary policy does not necessarily have to be flooded, but the changes in prices and the intensity of interest rate cuts must be greater.

So at present, it is imperative to come up with a package plan to launch intensively in such a window period. This is the most critical.