China Tells

With China’s economy topping World Newspapers’ headlines, people have reacted with doubts and critism as well. One of the common conerns on China’s economy is its excessively high investment ratio (compared to its low consumption ratio). Such an imbalanced economy, so goes the argument, is unsustainable in the long run. Whether China’s investment is really excessively high, however, remains to be questioned. A counter argument, for example, is that China’s investment ratio is actually not that high compared to its saving ratio. A cross comparison of some economies during the fastest period of their growth shows that all the rest have high investment ratio slightly higher than their saving ratio during the growth period. Based on that standard, China’s investment ratio is actually not that high thanks to her very high saving ratio. In other words, there is probably still potential for China to increase its investment even higher.

中国经济的结构是众多媒体和专家讨论的焦点问题。其中一个主要问题是中国是否过分依靠投资。比较常见的说法是中国经济投资重，消费轻，因此比较跛脚。但是该说法可能忽略一个重要事实，即中国的储蓄率不光全球最高，而且历史罕见。通过一个纵向比较中可以发现，大多数经济在其最快发展期间都有很高的投资率，并且高于其储蓄率。从08年水平看，中国的储蓄率高达50%，因此从这个方面来看投资率并非过高。