#China’s fiscal approach amid ongoing external economic &trade uncertainties: 1. Maintain steady growth of “broad #credit”-the sum of debts&loans to residents, firms & govts, which not just creates #debt but also financial assets which can help increase purchasing power.
2. Currently, the #credit and loan growth out of general govt spending and local govt financing platforms is a main stabilizer of #China’s #macroeconomic growth.
3. More “special #bonds” should be issued to support #infrastructure investments that generate low cash flow and are less profitable, meanwhile clarifying the #market-government boundary.
4. Boost consumer spending with fiscal measures while reducing subsidies to producers which can improve the efficiency of resource allocation. mp.weixin.qq.com/s/97k211PnKjTx…#economics
5. Although #China has a large #infrastructure scale, the contents and deployment of infrastructure investments throughout the nation should be further improved.
6. Hidden #debts of local governments and local financing platforms which are least sustainable and are not supported by enough cash flow should be managed properly to avoid their damage to the whole #financal system.
7. One approach to dealing with these hidden debts is to identify which part of them could generate reasonable cash flow so that could be handed over to the #market, and which part are public/quasi-public and should be taken over by government.
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According to CF40’s latest macroeconomic quarterly report ‘China's Countercyclical Fiscal Policy and Sustainability of Government Debt’, China has never heavily relied on budgetary spending to provide counter-cyclical stimulus. 1/5
Instead, it mainly adopts a model where local governments, financial institutions and local government financing vehicles work together to boost investment. 2/5
Statistics show that such a model has helped China stabilize its economic growth, but also increased the broad government debt to GDP ratio, raising concerns about the sustainability of government debt. 3/5
China could consider implementing negative individual income tax (IIT) to boost consumption and employment, advises CF40 research department. 1/4
It means that the government provides taxpayers with a certain amount of subsidy when the level of working income is lower than a given threshold. 2/4
A CF40 policy brief proposes a two-pronged policy scheme consisting of rewards and subsidies for businesses adding new jobs on one hand, and negative IIT on the other hand, which could drive spending and employment without causing excessive fiscal expenditure burdens. 3/4
The PBC's "benign neglect," an indirect policy tool devised in 2022 to influence the value of the RMB, was quite successful. It allows the market to determine the exchange rate while retaining capital controls as a last resort.1/5
It should be the most effective currency strategy for China's central bank, said CF40 Advisor Yu Yongding in a recent seminar.2/5
China should maintain a floating exchange rate regime to bring out its role as an automatic stabilizer while maintaining necessary capital control as a last resort.3/5
Despite the shrinking working-age population, there is a tremendous pool of surplus rural labor in China., said Caifang, Chief Expert of National Think Tank of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. 1/5
Many analysts predict that China will not have a rapid growth rate in the future or emerge as the largest economy in the world because its working-age population and total labor have stopped growing. 2/5
23% of the total labor in China are rural labor. In comparison, the percentage in highincome economies is only 3% or 4%. That means China needs to transfer 20% of its labor from rural to urban industries, which is huge given China’s enormous population. 3/5
#China could consider implementing negative individual income tax (IIT) to boost consumption and employment, suggests CF40 Research Department in a 2022 policy brief ‘Negative Individual Income Tax: Some Thoughts on Policies to Drive Employment and Consumption’. 1/4
It means that the government provides taxpayers with a certain amount of subsidy when the level of working income is lower than a given threshold. 2/4
The policy brief proposes a two-pronged policy scheme consisting of rewards and subsidies for businesses adding new jobs on one hand, and negative IIT on the other hand, which could drive spending and employment without causing excessive fiscal expenditure burdens. 3/4
Given China’s macroeconomic environment in December 2022, the following policies should be taken to boost China’s economic growth and deal with potential risks, said ZHANG Bin, CF40 Nonresident Senior Fellow: 1/5
1. Lower interest rate by 25 bps each time until the employment and growth targets are hit. 2. Issue new types of fiscally subsidized bonds and policy loans to support investment in public goods and quasi-public goods infrastructure projects that feature limited returns.2/4
3. Set up special funds to help market entities battered during the pandemic get back on their feet; increase the amount of living allowance for low-income groups. 3/5