中国增长质量真在改善吗？ Forget quantity, feel the quality

Never mind the quantity, feel the quality. Like the communiqué issued at the conclusion of the Communist Party’s annual plenary session last weekend, Thursday’s statement from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, presenting third-quarter data, was full of good stuff about adjustment of economic structures, and prioritising reform over absolute growth. Observers are invited to conclude that the credit and investment boom that kept China ticking over through the crisis was a quick fix; a more sustainable balance of consumption, investment and net exports is just around the corner.

别管数量了，感觉一下质量吧。与中国共产党上周末在其年度会议结束时发布的公报一样，中国国家统计局(National Bureau of Statistics)昨日发布的三季度数据报告，充满了经济结构正在调整、将改革置于绝对增长之上这类的好消息。观察人士们很容易得出这样的结论：让中国经济在危机期间仍保持运转的信贷与投资热，仅仅是权宜之计；消费、投资与净出口将很快达到一个更可持续的平衡。

The data itself, however, suggests otherwise. As usual, there is no precise breakdown of demand. But it is telling that the rate of growth in retail sales (a workable proxy for private consumption) continues to lag fixed-asset investment. Year-on-year growth in FAI slowed only marginally from the second quarter (and for all Hu Jintao’s talk of “inclusive growth,” spreading the proceeds of wealth around the country, urban FAI continues to rise faster than rural). Residential investment, accounting for about a quarter of the total, has been barely checked by several rounds of corrective measures this year; floorspace started, a proxy for housing starts, rose by 61 per cent, down from 77 per cent in the second quarter. A $65bn trade surplus, meanwhile, bigger than the first and second quarters’ combined, is evidence of nagging external imbalances.

然而，数据本身揭示的，却是另外一种情况。与往常一样，这次的报告依然没有将需求精确分类。但它告诉我们，零售销售的增长率（基本可以用来衡量私人消费），继续落后于固定资产投资。固定资产投资同比增长仅比二季度略有下滑，（而且，尽管胡锦涛提出了“包容性增长”——即让全国共享财富增长的好处，城镇固定资产投资增长速度仍快于农村）。住宅投资占到了固定资产投资的大约25%，表明今年的几轮纠正措施，对住宅投资几乎未起到任何抑制作用；房屋新开工面积（可以用来衡量新房屋建设）增长了61%，比二季度的77%有所下降。此外，650亿美元的贸易盈余，比一、二季度加起来还要多，表明外部失衡仍然存在。

Intentions to reform seem genuine enough. It is obviously in China’s best interests. Thursday’s consumer price inflation number – a lower-than-expected 3.6 per cent – supports the argument that this week’s surprise interest-rate increases were aimed at making investments more efficient by pushing the cost of capital higher. But it is a precondition of better-balanced growth that investment rises more slowly than consumption. That still isn’t happening. The national economy, says the NBS, is showing “good momentum of development.” Momentum, yes; development, no.

改革的意图看上去足够真诚。因为它显然符合中国的最大利益。周四发布的消费者价格指数(CPI)数据——上升3.6%，低于预期——支持了官方的下述说法：即本周出人意料的加息，旨在通过推高资金成本，提高投资的效率。但让消费增长高于投资增长，是更均衡增长的先决条件。而这仍然没有发生。统计局称，国民经济正显示出“良好的发展势头”。势头是有；但发展恐怕没有。