罗奇: GDP增长降速对中国是好消息_BEC初级作文

罗奇: GDP增长降速对中国是好消息

Other countries will need to adapt as China embraces slower economic growth as a result of its rebalancing

At 7.7 percent, China's annual GDP growth in the first quarter of this year was slower than many expected. While the data were hardly devastating relative to a consensus forecast of 8.2 percent, many expected a second consecutive quarterly rebound from the slowdown that appeared to have ended in the third quarter of 2017. China doubters around the world were quick to pounce on the number, expressing fears of a stall, or even a dreaded double dip.

But slower GDP growth is actually good for China, provided that it reflects the long-awaited structural transformation of the world's most dynamic economy. The broad outlines of this transformation are well known - a shift from export- and investment-led growth to an economic structure that draws greater support from domestic private consumption. What is less well known is a rebalanced China should have a slower growth rate, the first hints of which may now be evident.

罗奇: GDP增长降速对中国是好消息1

A rebalanced China can grow more slowly because by drawing increased support from services-led consumer demand, China's new model will embrace a more labor-intensive growth recipe. The numbers seem to bear that out. China's services sector requires about 35 percent more jobs per unit of GDP than do manufacturing and construction the primary drivers of the old model.

That number has potentially huge implications, because it means that China could grow at an annual rate of 7 to 8 percent and still achieve its objectives with respect to employment and poverty reduction. China has struggled to attain these goals with anything less than 10 percent growth, because the old model was not generating enough jobs per unit of output. Firms increasingly replaced workers with machines embodying the latest technologies, as Chinese manufacturing moved up the value chain.