In the past few years, I believe that many people have an obvious feeling, that is, business is getting worse and worse, except for a few enterprises and industries can still maintain rapid growth, the growth of many industries is relatively slow, or even negative growth.
Although the mainland's overall economy is still growing rapidly, with an annual growth rate of more than 5 percent, many of these are driven by investment, especially by some large state-owned enterprises and central enterprises.
So why are many industries not doing well? Many experts and scholars have conducted various studies on this, and different people have come to different conclusions.
Lu Qiyuan: The reason for China's economic downturn is that the rich have transferred their wealth away and the middle class has been wiped out
Recently, economist Lu Linyuan made a remark in a column, and his original words are as follows.
"What problems have we had, the first question is capitalization, what causes the capital accumulation rate to fall from 10, 8, 6 all the way? Many people say that the Chinese population is aging, and many people say that China's economy is large enough, is this what people who study economics should say?
The only reason for China's sluggish economic growth is that the rate of capital accumulation has fallen, so why has the rate of capital accumulation fallen? The most important reason is that the first factor is the amount of capital that has been taken? I dare to make a categorical conclusion that it is not less than $3,000 billion, and what does $3,000 billion mean? It means 21 trillion (100 million) yuan, you may not understand why it is 21 trillion, that is, China's fiscal revenue for a year has been taken away, and there are friends, friends around me think that as high as 5 trillion (US dollars), 5 trillion (US dollars) is unacceptable, although it is not taken away in a year, and it is not necessary to take it away in 10 years.
Do you know what kind of money they took away? The money they took is the basis for the middle class on the mainland to become the middle class, and if they don't take it, there may be 6.81 billion people on the mainland who will become the middle class, and if they take it, the middle class will be wiped out, which is consistent with what happened in Hong Kong."
Is there any basis for what Lu Linyuan said? Has there really been a large amount of capital leaving the country over the past few years?
Let's first analyze a few pieces of data to address these issues.
First, the amount of foreign investment.
According to the data released by the Ministry of Commerce, in recent years, the mainland's foreign investment has been in a relatively stable state, and the industry's foreign investment is basically between 900 billion and 1,050 billion, and the overall capital outflow is not very obvious.
Second, foreign exchange reserves.
If what Lu Linyuan said is true, then the mainland's foreign exchange reserves should be significantly reduced.
However, judging from the data released by the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, the mainland's foreign exchange reserves have been relatively stable in recent years. From the end of 2019 to the end of 2023, the mainland's foreign exchange reserves were US$3,107.924 billion, US$3,216.522 billion, US$3,250.166 billion, US$3,127.691 billion, and US$3,237.977 billion, respectively.
By analyzing the trend of foreign exchange reserves in recent years, the overall foreign exchange is in a steady and slow upward trend, and there is no obvious outflow.
Third, the bank collects and pays foreign-related on behalf of customers.
According to the mainland's current foreign exchange management system, it is impossible for customers to take huge amounts of cash overseas, and most of them transfer money out through bank accounts, so bank transfer is the most reflective indicator of capital flow, and the data of bank collection and payment on behalf of customers is the most convincing.
Judging from the actual situation in recent years, although the annual data of bank collection and payment on behalf of customers in mainland China is relatively large, the overall capital is still a net inflow, not a net outflow.
From 2020 to 2023, the net outflow of foreign-related receipts and payments from mainland banks on behalf of customers will be -1,002.825 billion US dollars, -356.402 billion US dollars, -76.339 billion US dollars, and 68.694 billion US dollars, respectively, and the net inflow of funds will reach 1,366.872 billion US dollars in four years.
From the above three data, it can be clearly seen that in recent years, the mainland's overall capital has been a net inflow, not a net outflow, and as for Lu Linyuan's statement that there are $3,000 billion or even more than $5,000 billion in capital outflow, we cannot confirm which channel the statistics came from.
As a matter of fact, what is currently plaguing the mainland's economy is not the exodus of funds, but the fact that residents dare not spend money when they have it
Judging from the statistics of relevant state departments, in fact, the total amount of funds in the mainland has been on an upward trend.
Moreover, judging from the actual situation in China, both the balance of domestic and foreign currency deposits and residents' deposits have been on an upward trend.
From 2019 to 2023, the balance of domestic and foreign currency deposits in mainland China will be 198.16 trillion yuan, 218.37 trillion yuan, 238.6 trillion yuan, 264.45 trillion yuan, and 289.91 trillion yuan respectively, with corresponding growth rates of 8.6%, 10.2%, 9.3%, 10.8%, and 9.6% respectively.
In addition, in recent years, the balance of household deposits in mainland China has also shown a rapid growth trend, especially in the years from 2020 to 2023, almost all new household deposits have reached more than 10 trillion yuan every year, of which the new savings in 2022 and 2023 will reach more than 16 trillion yuan each year.
Through the analysis of various data, it can be shown that although the amount of foreign investment in the mainland has increased significantly in recent years, this is due to some objective factors, such as the occurrence of geopolitical conflicts that have led to the diversification of many capitals, the adjustment of the industrial structure that has led to the relocation of many labor-intensive industries, and the poor performance of the capital market has led to a lot of funds seeking more investment opportunities overseas.
However, judging from the actual situation, the overall domestic capital is still rising, and the mainland's actual use of foreign capital is also rising every year.
At present, the whole society is not short of money, what is lacking is everyone's enthusiasm for investment, although residents' deposits and local and foreign currency deposits have been growing rapidly, but the people's enthusiasm for investment is not very high.
According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2021, private fixed asset investment will 307659 billion yuan, an increase of 7.0%;
In 2022, private investment in fixed assets will 310145 billion yuan, up by 0.9%, and in 2023, private investment in fixed assets will 253544 billion yuan, down by 0.4%.
This fully shows that the current private investment is relatively sluggish, which directly leads to the slow growth of many industries, so the real economic downturn is not a large amount of capital leaving, but many people have money and are unwilling to spend.