Yesterday in the message area, someone saw my post on foreign exchange reserves and sighed: "If China in 1960 had 1/100 of the foreign exchange reserves it has today, the chairman would probably wake up laughing from his dream!" ”
I replied that now China's foreign exchange reserves are more than 3 trillion, one in 100 is more than 30 billion, more than 30 billion foreign exchange reserves, what is that concept?
In 1960, Japan had a foreign exchange of 1.7 billion, the United Kingdom 900 million, and Germany 4 billion.
Japan only broke through 30 billion for the first time in 1978, then fell to more than 20 billion, and it was not until 1986 that it again exceeded the real sustained growth of 30 billion.
The post-war Marshall Plan allocated a total of 13 billion yuan to aid the whole of Europe, which lasted for four years.
If 30 billion is taken in 1960, it is an astronomical amount of money.
Taking a step back, if the value of 30 billion is calculated in past units of measurement, in 1960 it was still in the Bretton Woods system, 35 US dollars was exchanged for an ounce of gold, and today's gold price is 1870 US dollars, which is 53 times that of that year, 300/53 = 566 million US dollars.
566 million was still a huge amount in 1960, which was the foreign exchange reserve of that year
As shown in the figure, In 1960, China's foreign exchange reserves were only 0.46 billion, less than 100 million US dollars, and this money was 12.3 times that of China's foreign exchange reserves that year.
And if today's foreign exchange reserves of more than 3 trillion yuan are placed in that year, it is a huge amount of about 60 billion yuan.
Even today, foreign exchange reserves seem to be "at your fingertips", after all, last year almost increased the trade surplus of nearly 700 billion US dollars, today's foreign exchange settlement policy has not required compulsory foreign exchange settlement, enterprises and individuals can independently retain foreign exchange income, which means that foreign exchange reserves have been completely enough, so you can not see from the national foreign exchange reserves.
But even so, foreign exchange for many countries, is still extremely difficult to obtain, the world's 200 or so economies, only nearly 60 countries are trade surplus countries, and then 60 countries of developed countries and resource exporters, such as relying on copper ore, oil and other countries to remove, developing countries do not rely on resource exports, and only the following are trade surplus countries:
China, Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, Hungary, Vietnam, Côte d'Ivoire, Paraguay.
Just a few countries, such as Côte d'Ivoire, Brazil, Paraguay and other countries whose main exports are agricultural products, such as cocoa beans, soybeans, beef and the like, can really have a trade surplus, a European country Hungary, the rest of the countries are concentrated in East and Southeast Asia.
So I often say that Vietnam is a country with good development, like Vietnam's per capita GDP is relatively low, foreign trade does not rely on natural resources or surplus, the world is the only one.
In terms of trade, only South Korea is really fighting with China, there are not many countries with non-resource countries that have trade surpluses with China, and only South Korea can sustain trade surpluses with China, and even Germany cannot do this.
Worthy of being the king of rolls.
Chinese talk about "too much foreign exchange", so every time the United States cuts interest rates or depreciates, it leads to the shrinkage of China's foreign exchange reserves, which is taken for granted by Chinese, and in the eyes of many developing countries, there is a sense of "Versailles showing off wealth".
Why is it so difficult for developing countries to have a trade surplus?
The sources of foreign exchange are diverse, which can be obtained by foreign trade surpluses, investments by other countries in their own countries, and can also be obtained from remittances, but foreign exchange obtained by trade surpluses is different from other methods, because it shows the competitiveness of domestic products--- no matter what is exported.
Manufacturing countries needless to say, even those resource exporters, that also shows that people's resources are good, typical of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia can do continuous oil foreign exchange, because Saudi Arabia's oil quality is good, it is easier to extract, the same Venezuela is not.
Because Venezuela's oil must be removed as soon as it comes out, otherwise it will be glued to the well platform on the spot, remove the asphalt, and then need to buy naphtha or light oil from abroad, almost 2.5:1 to synthesize into a barrel of so-called mixed crude oil, in order to transport, otherwise there is no way to transport, can only be sold directly as asphalt. After the reconciliation, it can be guaranteed that there is enough fluidity through the oil pump pipeline before it can be shipped and sold.
Only export commodities can talk about "international competitiveness", and the rest are non-exportable goods, not competition, such as most service products, such as you cut a hair in the United States, spend $40, which is not a competition problem.
Before Reagan came to power, it was almost impossible for other developing countries to obtain sufficient foreign exchange reserves except for energy exports abroad, and China was no exception, which was not only a problem of "reform and opening up".
Before the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, the developed countries generally retained their own manufacturing industries, and the US dollar at that time was the real "US dollar", which could be directly exchanged for gold, in international trade, developing countries, whether high-end or low-end industries, were not the opponents of developed countries, and the US dollar at that time was still very valuable, generally did not take the initiative to export capital.
Even China is no exception, look at the composition of China's exports in the 1970s: more than 70% belong to agricultural products, 30% become industrial and mineral products, and these 30% of "industrial and mineral products" also have a large number of raw materials, such as ores, and even oil, and China did not change from an oil exporter to an oil importer until 1993.
Looking at China's imports: means of production account for 80% of the proportion, and the means of subsistence are only 20%, that is, a large number of production machinery and other things are imported.
Judging from the situation of China's imports and exports in that year, it is very obvious to see the embarrassing situation in China at that time: obviously want enough mechanical products, obviously there are enough qualified labor, obviously imported these products may greatly improve the country's economic situation, it is because of the shortage of foreign exchange, the purchase is a problem.
After the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, international finance was turbulent for many years, until the Reagan era established a new globalization system, and the crazy outflow of American capital, developing countries gained valuable breathing time, and even China was no exception.
In the 1980s, import and export trade was balanced in 1 year, surplus for two years, and deficit for the remaining 7 years. The total deficit was $4.29 billion.
Where did foreign exchange reserves come from in the 1980s?
Similar to today's India, it relies on a steady stream of foreign capital investment, although foreign trade is a deficit, but the capital and financial accounts are surplus, that is to say, in fact, foreign capital takes the dollar, runs to China to convert it into rmb, and then invests, and the dollar they exchange becomes the mainland's foreign exchange reserves.
Now to recall, why did we emphasize "introducing foreign capital" so much in those years, to be honest, it was forced.
China's development was extremely smooth in that year, and this situation was completely reversed in the 1990s, except for 1993, when China's foreign trade continued to run a surplus.
And this kind of foreign exchange reserves accumulated in the form of investment is very dependent on foreign relations, otherwise the end may be like Erdogan's Turkey, why was it a "Taoguang yang obscurity" policy at that time? No, no, no.
Accumulating foreign exchange reserves comes at a cost:
The first is to suppress domestic demand and mortgage the national economy to other countries to obtain capital.
The second is that these reserves must be invested in liquid and zero-risk assets to ensure that they are quickly liquidated (converted to a currency state) when needed, but sometimes their rate of return is low or almost non-existent, with the result that the opportunity to invest these funds in productive projects that produce higher profits is lost
Over the years, China has continued to invest abroad to acquire the right to exploit mines and oil and gas fields in other countries, to acquire long-term rights to vast agricultural lands and forests to ensure the supply of its basic commodities, energy and food resources, and to invest in thousands of companies in the United States, the European Union and other economies, as well as to lend to the governments of many developing countries in exchange for infrastructure projects
At the same time, a number of major projects have been invested, introducing modern technologies from abroad and localizing them, thereby moving forward at the level of the value chain and focusing on high value-added products in the future rather than labor-intensive products.
China can do this because it has a huge amount of foreign exchange to hedge, and once there is volatility in the international financial market, there is enough foreign exchange to intervene.
For the vast majority of developing countries, it is simply not able to meet this condition, many people have been talking about China's research and development as a proportion of GDP has reached 2.4%, which is higher than many developed countries, is the only one of developing countries, the closest to China developing countries, but Brazil, Greece and the like, only 1.18 and 1.16 only.
It is not that these countries are unwilling to engage in research and development, the so-called research and development, that is, to spend money and continue to spend money, need to import a large number of foreign equipment, technology, which require foreign exchange.
From the reform and opening up in the 1980s to today, although many people like to say things like "Chinese people are hard-working, diligent and brave", it has to be admitted that the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 and the policies implemented by Reagan after 1980 led to the transfer of capital from developed countries.
Secondly, we can talk about how hardworking and brave the Chinese people are.
And the beginning of developing countries: access to capital, this is really difficult.
Don't forget, even the old developed countries, how to get capital?
Colonized, plundered, made of countless blood.
In a way, we really should feel lucky.