On November 30, the "2021 Sohu Finance Summit" was held in Beijing.
The summit brought together more than ten political elites, business leaders and economic leaders to discuss the current economic situation and innovation opportunities in depth around the themes of "new economic cycle and new driving force for consumption", "coordinated development of the financial industry and manufacturing industry", and "scientific and technological innovation supports the rise of domestic products".
The summit is divided into two sessions, morning and afternoon. The morning session focused on the macroeconomic situation, and the afternoon session focused on the micro level of business operations.
In the afternoon session, Yao Yang, dean of the National Institute of Development Studies at Peking University, attended and delivered a speech entitled "New Economic Cycle and New Driving Force for Consumption".
(Pictured is Yao Yang, dean of the National Institute of Development Studies, Peking University)
Yao Yang pointed out that in the past decade, China's economy has undergone a very profound round of adjustment, and he believes that the adjustment has been basically in place and is about to usher in a new round of relatively rapid growth. The economic growth rate declined in the second half of this year, and in Yao Yang's view, these are just a sentiment and do not mean that the economic growth prospects are not optimistic.
For the field of new energy, Yao Yang said that China basically occupies a dominant position in the field of new energy in the world. The goal of carbon peaking, he believes, should be achievable in China in 2030, the key is to change the energy structure, that is, to reduce coal.
Yao Yang also talked about urbanization, he said that urbanization is still a very important driving force to promote economic growth in the next two or three decades, and such a driving force cannot be ignored, and there are still 200 million people to enter the city in the next fifteen years. China's urbanization is not over, which means that China's investment is not over.
In addition, Yao Yang mentioned that last year, China's Fortune 500 has surpassed the United States and become the world's largest country. There are many global technology leading enterprises in China, especially some hidden champion enterprises, in fact, there are many such enterprises, but we have not seen, he believes that the overall Chinese economy is still good.
The following is the full text of the speech:
I am very happy to participate in the forum of Sohu Finance again, this afternoon's theme is related to consumption, but I myself are studying the economy, and I am more concerned about macroeconomic things, so today I want to share with you the trend of China's economic consumption.
Over the past decade, China's economy has undergone a very profound round of adjustment. In fact, in the past four decades, China's economy has basically adjusted in one cycle for ten years and one adjustment every two years. The eighties of the last century were a decade of rapid growth, the nineties were very deep adjustments, and then there was the rapid growth of the first decade of this century. The past decade has been another period of adjustment, and I think the adjustment is basically in place, and I am afraid that we will usher in a new round of relatively rapid growth. However, this judgment is different from many people's views, and everyone is easily swayed by some short-term events. For example, in the second half of this year, the economic growth rate has slowed down, some inflation is rising, everyone is talking about stagflation, the economic growth rate is low, and the inflation level is higher. However, these are just a sentiment, does not mean that the economic growth prospects are not optimistic, but also does not represent the expectation of inflation, in fact, we can not talk about the so-called "inflation", these and climate is also related, this year's weather is more strange, and did not really affect our prices. Our growth in the first three quarters of this year was 5.8%, even if the last quarter did not grow, there is still a 7.5% growth rate, as long as we can have 4% growth in the last quarter, the annual growth rate is 8.5%, which is already a very high rate. Let's not be swayed by these short-term emotions, which can easily have a bad impact on investment and business.
In the next ten to twenty years or even longer, China's new round of technology is a long cycle. We are in the period of the highest light of China or Chinese civilization, which should be said to be the period of the highest light of civilization that is once in a thousand years, and everyone should have this confidence.
Some speakers this morning mentioned urbanization, and I will also talk briefly about it here. Urbanization is still a very important driving force for economic growth in the next two or three decades, we can not ignore such a driving force, the next fifteen years there are still 200 million people to enter the city, China's urbanization is not over, means that China's investment is not over.
For more than two hundred years, the development of the world has been driven by technological progress, and many technologies are very attractive to investment, but if no bubble is allowed to exist, there can be no new technologies. Every time a new round of technology emerges, we find that there is a bubble. Therefore, we must tolerate this bubble of scientific and technological innovation, and finally we can truly become mature and widely used.
China is at such a stage in many new areas, and here I would like to say three main aspects:
China in the field of new energy basically occupies a dominant position in the world, 1/3 of the installed solar capacity in China, 75% of the solar panel components are produced in China, the cost is also greatly reduced, the cost has now been as cheap as thermal power, thermal power is now also rising in price, so the price of solar energy has become lower, the current cost is still declining, and it is expected that the next five years will become lower.
China also occupies an absolute dominant position in the field of wind energy, and China is still at the forefront of international actions to save energy and reduce emissions and defeat climate change. You may talk about how to store energy, China's power grid is also very powerful, is it conceivable of a global power grid, there is no problem of energy storage, China can also make a great contribution in this regard.
China is facing the challenge of carbon peaking, carbon neutrality is probably not something for our generation to consider, 2060 is too far away, but carbon peak is 2030, can China achieve it? It should be achievable, and the key is that we want to change our energy structure, that is, to reduce coal. Because coal now accounts for 60% of the total energy consumption, emissions account for 80%, during the "Tenth Five-Year Plan" period we will build 12.5%, if the planning can reach such a speed, there is hope for carbon peaking in 2030. But it should be emphasized that the energy revolution is the most crucial part of this round of the world's fight against climate change, and China is the leader.
China also occupies a dominant position in the field of electric vehicles, last year China's electric vehicle sales accounted for 40% of the world, this year accounted for nearly 60%, electric vehicle sales are 6 times that of the United States. China's new energy related fields of electric vehicles are completely out of "urbanization is still a very important driving force to promote economic growth in the next two or three decades, And China's urbanization is not over, which means that China's investment is not over." "In the leading position, even the leadership position, because our leading type is definitely the first camp in the world's electric vehicles, whether it is battery technology or mileage is the world's leading." We expect to sell 14 million electric vehicles by 2030.
The new strength of car manufacturing has not been defeated because of Tesla's competition, in fact, many niche brands have far exceeded Tesla's sales, but sales are still rising. It is very likely that the next decade will repeat the mistakes that Japan committed on a large scale in the last century. China is also the world leader in AI, thanks to China's huge market, massive data, and so many talents. Sometimes we don't know where AI is applied, everyone goes back to where we live to take a closer look, parking on the side of the road has not looked at the car, a person riding an electric motorcycle around the block, there is a three-hundred-and-sixty degree camera behind, after taking it, AI keeps sharing, which cars are parked right, which cars are not parked right, that is, we do not realize it at all, but have begun to apply.
In the past, urbanization is jumpy, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jumps directly to the coast, in the future, China's urbanization will face gradient urbanization, the population of third- and fourth-tier cities will be concentrated in first- and second-tier cities, and the population in rural areas will be concentrated in county towns and third- and fourth-tier cities. Population concentration is a worldwide trend, the United States, Japan are like this, especially Japan's land area is so small, 500 kilometers of distance concentrated nearly 70% of the population, the future of China is the same.
Can cities continue to grow indefinitely? Organisms and enterprises are limited in scale, because output cannot keep up with the speed of scale expansion, but cities are not the same, and the output in the process of urban expansion is super linear, and the cost is lower than linear, so it can be expanded indefinitely.
In the past decade, the population of the three northeastern provinces is decreasing, along the HuHuanyong line, the less developed places from the northwest to the southeast are losing population, and the population of the better economic areas, especially the central urban areas, is growing on a large scale. What has happened in the past decade or so has happened in almost every provincial capital, that is, the population is rapidly gathering.
We can imagine that in the future, the population will be concentrated in 7 urbanized areas with 9 national central cities as the core, of which 60%-70% of China's population is still possible. Agglomeration will bring greater benefits and hedge against the negative effects of aging. We can't exaggerate the negative impact of aging on China's economy, it is actually our advantage to grow old before getting rich, there are still so many people who want to go to the city, because the concentration of people needs to improve productivity and education level, which is enough to make up for the lack of labor supply caused by the decline in the number of labor. Of course, there are still some cities that will decline, but it doesn't matter, it's just a matter of time, the development of cities is always regular, I don't think it's too tangled, the people should have their own freedom of choice.
I remember when the epidemic first began last year, many people said that the industrial chain was going to be broken, and China was going to be isolated by the world. It turns out that I was right, the industrial chain is not broken, China has not left the world, the world has not left China, in fact, the world's dependence on China is rising, not declining. The reason is that the pattern of the division of labor in the whole world has not changed, and it is reasonable to believe that the division of labor in the world is reasonable, and we must also have confidence in ourselves. Where is China's confidence? We have a huge market, we are afraid that people will decouple from us, and others are afraid that we will kick them out. China's manufacturing industry accounts for 29.2% of the world's total manufacturing industry, what is the concept? The United States, Japan, Germany three world manufacturing powers add up just 1 percentage point more than China, China has a strong ecological network, China produces a thing is very easy, but to move to other countries will become more expensive, our level of human capital is also constantly improving, which is also a huge advantage of China.
Looking at the data of China's exports, in fact, China's exports have not stopped at all, it is entirely a seasonal factor, and it is understandable that exports have declined in January every year. U.S. exports to China haven't changed much, and they've increased since the pandemic, so what we're seeing is not decoupling, it's being more closely linked again. U.S. investment in China is actually increasing, because China's position in the world is increasing, whether it is GDP or exports, china's share is also growing in a straight line if it is compared between major countries.
Last year, China's Fortune 500 surpassed the United States and became the largest number of countries in the world. We also have many global technology leading enterprises, especially some hidden champion enterprises, such as Zhao Yan here is the hidden champion, more than ten years ago was the first, and now the technology is also the first, the technical level is several times that of the second place. In fact, there are many such enterprises, it turns out that Shandong has declined, in fact, Shandong is full of hidden champion enterprises, but we have not seen it. We do business and media is too easy to be swayed by emotions and big events, in fact, the overall Chinese economy is still good.
China is still one of the most worthwhile countries in the world to invest in, and in the first half of this year, according to OECD statistics, China attracted $177 billion in foreign investment, accounting for 20% of the world, which means that foreign capital is already voting with its feet. If foreign capital believes that China is a worthwhile place to invest, there is no reason why domestic companies and investors should not regard China as an important place of investment.
The time has also come, I will be here with everyone, thank you!
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