Guo Lei: Stable economic growth will mainly rely on fiscal and industrial policies

Reporter Zhang Yi Intern reporter Zhang Lingxiao

Guo Lei, chief economist of GF Securities, said a few days ago that in the next three to four quarters, China's economy will show a gradual slowdown trend, and in the case of strict supervision of real estate regulation, the task of stable growth will mainly fall on fiscal policies and industrial policies.

Speaking at the 2021 China Chief Economist Forum on Thursday, Guo Lei said the cyclical decline in China's economy will go through two stages. The first phase will be in the second half of this year, mainly because real estate sales have gone down the ladder; the second phase will be in the first half of next year, mainly due to a slowdown in export growth.

According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, in the third quarter of this year, China's gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate fell below "5" year-on-year, recording only 4.9% growth, down 3 percentage points from the growth rate in the second quarter; the average growth rate in the two years was 4.9%, down 0.6 percentage points from the second quarter.

Guo Lei believes that the current necessity of introducing a stable growth policy is on the rise, but in the context of "housing and not speculation", subject to real estate regulation and control, the space for monetary policy is limited. In contrast, fiscal and industrial policies have more room to play.

"Because the traditional transmission variable of monetary policy is real estate, real estate sales will stabilize after successive interest rate cuts and RRR cuts, and downstream manufacturing and service industries will stabilize." Therefore, how much space our round of financial policy can give to real estate, how much flexibility it has in itself corresponding to traditional monetary policy. He said.

From the perspective of fiscal policy, Guo Lei expects that the pace of fiscal expenditure next year will be in front, and the driving effect of fiscal force on the economy at the beginning of the year will be more obvious. In terms of industrial policy, he believes that in the next five years, industries and fields such as housing leasing, double carbon, consumption and new energy will be popular investment directions.

In addition, when talking about the recent power rationing problem, Guo Lei mentioned that in the first half of this year, under the strong pull of foreign exports, the proportion of the secondary industry represented by industry in GDP increased abnormally, which made it inevitable that the energy consumption per unit of GDP would rise sharply. However, with china's economic slowdown and the repair of the service industry, the proportion of the secondary industry in GDP will gradually decline.

"From the previous data, the proportion of the tertiary industry in GDP will basically rise by about one (percentage) point every year, but in the first half of this year, the proportion of the secondary industry in GDP has increased abnormally, especially the proportion of industry has increased by about 2 percentage points." Under this structure, the entire unit energy consumption is under great pressure. Guo Lei said.