While inflation dominated the news about last week’s National People’s Congress, a more interesting story may be the contentious internal debate about rebalancing Chinese growth from investment to consumption. It will prove a difficult task. The evolution of Chinese household consumption is one of the more striking economic stories of recent decades. In the 1980s household consumption comprised 50-52 per cent of China’s GDP – low, but within range of other high-saving Asian countries.
在有關上週中國人大會議的新聞報導中,通膨是焦點所在,但是,一場圍繞中國經濟再平衡的內部激辯或許會讓人們更感興趣。從「投資型成長」轉變爲「消費型成長」將是一項艱鉅的任務。中國家庭消費的演變是近幾十年最令人矚目的經濟事件之一。上世紀80年代,家庭消費在中國GDP中佔的比重爲50-52%,屬於低水準,但尚在亞洲其他高儲蓄國家所處的範疇之內。