A few days into 2011, and one of its big themes is already obvious. While most of the world’s largest economies are committed to monetary looseness and fiscal tightness, China is doing just the opposite. Beijing is using a full array of tools – interest rate increases, reduced loan quotas and bespoke reserves requirements for individual banks – to counter the fastest inflation in two years. Meanwhile, it plans to continue spending big sums on housing and other public works. In officialese, monetary policy has shifted from “proactive” to “prudent”, while fiscal policy remains “proactive”. The latter could actually be imprudent.
進入2011年才幾天，一個年度主題便已彰顯無遺。當全球大多數大型經濟體致力於貨幣寬鬆與財政緊縮之際，中國的舉措卻恰恰相反。中國政府動用了大量工具——加息、減少貸款配額、爲各家銀行定製存款準備金率——以抗擊兩年來上升速度最快的通膨。與此同時，中國政府還計劃繼續大舉投資於住房和其它公用事業建設。按照官方說法，貨幣政策已由「積極」轉向「穩健」，而財政政策依然保持「積極」。後者可能實際上並不審慎。