Text: Yangcheng Evening News reporter Liu Zhuonan.
Picture: Yangcheng Evening News reporter Cai Jiahong.
Poster Yangcheng Evening News reporter Mai Yuheng.
On the morning of December 2, the 2023 "Understanding China" International Conference (Guangzhou) opened at the Yuexiu International Convention Center. In his speech at the opening ceremony, Huang Qifan, executive vice chairman of the Academic Committee of the National Innovation Association and former mayor of Chongqing, pointed out that in the past 10 years, China's economy has seen "three positive new changes": the export structure has improved significantly, the introduction of foreign investment has increased year after year, and the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international dual circulation pattern has taken shape. In the future, China will still be the main force of world economic growth, and in deepening reform, there are three aspects that need to be strengthened: the transformation of economic growth momentum, the promotion of domestic and foreign trade integration, and the gradual increase of the proportion of residents' disposable income in GDP.
The export structure has improved significantly.
This year, China's auto exports will be the largest in the world.
Huang Qifan pointed out that China's export structure has improved markedly in the past decade or so. For example, he said that more than ten years ago, about 30% of China's export products were mechanical and electrical products, and 70% were labor-intensive light industrial textile products. In recent years, as China vigorously promotes the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry and the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry, China's position in the global industrial division of labor has been continuously improved, and the trend of high-end exports and high value-added is obvious.
For example, compared with 20 years ago, the proportion of products exported by China's labor-intensive industries has dropped significantly, accounting for less than 10% in 2021. The corresponding exports of high-tech products have increased substantially, and now, the export of high-tech products and mechanical and electrical products accounts for more than 90% of the total exports, and China will become the world's largest exporter of automobiles this year.
The new business of foreign trade is supporting the new pattern of China's foreign trade. In the future, China's export structure and international conditions will be improved by new and higher quality benefits. Huang Qifan said.
The introduction of foreign capital has increased year after year.
China has formed a super-large market.
China's introduction of foreign capital has been increasing year after year, and China has become a gravitational field of global resource elements. Huang Qifan cited a series of data to verify. The decade from 2000 to 2010 was the decade of the fastest export-oriented economic development, during which China introduced an average of about 120 billion US dollars of foreign investment every year. In the last decade from 2012 to 2022, an average of about 140 billion US dollars of foreign investment has been introduced every year. From 2020 to 2022, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, some people think that the introduction of foreign investment will decrease, but on the contrary, the average annual introduction of foreign investment in these three years is about 170 billion US dollars. Last year, China's actual foreign investment was about $180 billion, the highest since the beginning of reform and opening up.
Why is this happening?
Huang Qifan pointed out that this stems from the fact that China has formed a super-large-scale market, which can effectively dilute the procurement costs, R&D costs, sales costs, logistics costs, and fixed asset investment costs of the manufacturing industry. Such economies of scale make the cost of Chinese manufacturing 30% and 40% lower than that of similar international products on average, forming a new competitiveness. The cost of integrated manufacturing in China's manufacturing base is lower than that of other places in Europe and the United States, which has also become one of the reasons why foreign investment in China has continued to increase for more than 10 years.
In the next 10 years, China's import and export will.
Maintain about one-third of GDP.
Huang Qifan pointed out that China's domestic circulation as the main body and the domestic and international dual circulation pattern have taken shape, which is a positive new change in China's economy.
He introduced that since the founding of the People's Republic of China, China's economic cycle has experienced three periods: from the 50s to the 80s of the 20th century, the internal circulation is mainly closed, and China's import and export accounts for less than 10% of GDP. From the 80s of the 20th century to around 2010, "two ends are outside, big in and big out", the external circulation is the mainstay, and the proportion of import and export in GDP has gradually risen to %.
China's current goal is to "take the domestic cycle as the main body, and the domestic and international dual cycles promote each other", that is, to reduce the proportion of imports and exports to less than 35% overall, and let the domestic economic cycle account for more than two-thirds of GDP, which is a new pattern of China's development.
In the next 10 or 20 years, China's imports and exports will always be maintained at about one-third of GDP, and the economic momentum of internal circulation will remain at more than two-thirds of GDP, and this new pattern will be formed in the next 10 years. Huang Qifan said.
It is necessary to look for new engines of economic growth.
The economic growth model driven by real estate is unsustainable.
In his speech, Huang Qifan pointed out that China will continue to be the main force of world economic growth in the future as it embarks on a new journey of Chinese-style modernization. The high-quality development of China's economy now has four major advantages: the institutional advantage of the socialist market economy, the demand advantage of the super-large-scale market, the supply advantage of a very complete industrial system, and the large number of high-quality workers and entrepreneurs. In the next step, in order to ensure high-quality development and stable growth, major reforms will be carried out in three aspects.
The first is the transformation of economic growth momentum. "In the past years, we have relied on real estate to drive economic growth, and the model of increasing fiscal revenue is unsustainable. Therefore, we need to find a new engine of growth, and organically combine the strategy of expanding domestic demand with deepening supply-side structural reform. Huang Qifan, for example, car consumption, car ownership can almost double.
In the future, there is potential to develop to 30 million units per year, and we have a lot of measures such as restricting vehicles and license plates, and if these are released, it will bring about market growth. Huang Qifan said.
The second is to promote the integration of domestic and foreign trade, which is an important entry point to realize the mutual promotion of domestic and international dual circulation and build a new development pattern.
The third is to gradually increase the proportion of residents' disposable income in GDP. Huang Qifan introduced that last year, China's GDP reached 121 trillion yuan, and the proportion of residents' disposable income in GDP was 43%, which is relatively low in the world, 52% in the United States and 55% in Europe.
The increase in the proportion of consumption does not depend on the direct discovery and distribution of money to the people, but fundamentally to adjust the income distribution structure and gradually increase the proportion of residents' disposable income in GDP. It is necessary to increase from the current % to about %. Huang Qifan said.
Huang Qifan pointed out that the key to realizing the adjustment of the distribution of income pattern lies in expanding the number of middle-income people, so that the number of 400 million middle-income people in China can be doubled in the next 10 years or so, for example, the number of middle-income people will reach 7 or 800 million. The number of low-income people has been reduced from half of the current 600 million to 300 million. These 300 million people have become middle-income people, which is a key measure to increase the proportion of disposable income of residents by 10 percentage points in the primary distribution of the national economy.
The momentum and fundamentals of China's sustained economic growth will not change, and the fundamentals of high-quality development will only become more and more solid through deepening reforms. Huang Qifan said.