“经济奇迹”过后:中国的挑战

Furthering the ‘economic miracle’: China’s challenge

2012年实施相对中性的货币政策是否足够支持经济尚需观望，但是初步的迹象令人鼓舞。

After the global financial difficulties of 2008-9, China, along with a number of more developed countries, has faced further economic challenges in 2012. In response to the 2009 crisis, the Chinese government introduced a 4 trillion Yuan stimulus, but so far this year, bank lending has not been boosted to the same extent. While new Yuan-denominated bank loans rose 15% y-o-y in the first ten months of 2012, lending was still down 19% compared to the same period in 2009. Although the immediate peak lending of the stimulus period was a one off, capital demand from the ongoing infrastructure development, in particular the efforts to support house construction, has meant that lending never fell back to 2008 levels. 7.9 and 7.5 trillion RMB was loaned in 2010 and 2011 respectively. The government has taken a number of subtler steps to shore up the economy this year, including reducing interest rates and loosening controls on banks’ lending and deposit rates. In recent months, there has been evidence that Chinese growth may be picking up, particularly in the form of better industrial production data, and it may be that these policies have offered enough support.