理財您才

作者：經濟學人 　出處：Web Only 2009/02

中國成長停滯，其他東亞國家也是如此，和西方經濟脫鉤的希望落空，有些國家受創的程度甚至比西方國家更嚴重。各國傾向認為這是無法處理的外來衝擊，但政策錯誤也是嚴重衰弱的原因。

各國衰弱的幅度驚人，主因為庫存大規模下滑以及出口崩盤。有人認為亞洲區內部貿易可以保護亞洲經濟，但亞洲內的貿易是全球供應鏈的一部分，也會受到富有國家需求的影響。

大部分亞洲國家的衰弱，不是由淨出口下滑造成，而是國內需求不振。除了全球景氣不佳，政策也是造成需求不振的原因。

大部分國家極度倚賴出口，高儲蓄率壓縮消費，鉅額外匯存底也表示，貧窮的亞洲農民在為西方的過度消費融資。當然這也有好處，亞洲政府有更強的能力刺激經濟、帶動復甦，例如中國政府即計畫進行大型公共建設。

但基礎建設並不是長久之計，刺激方案遲早會沈重到無法負擔，帶來的成長也會失去動力。減少對出口的倚賴，才是亞洲維持成長的永續之道，也能幫助全球走出衰退。亞洲政府必須進行結構性改革，例如社會安全等，以鼓勵民眾消費，減少存款的必要性。

看看日本因為過度倚賴出口，沒有成功解決國內需求不振的問題，受到的衝擊比任何富有國家都嚴重。日本曾經認為自己是亞洲國家的模範，現在該是其他亞洲國家尋找新模範的時候了。（黃維德譯）

Asia economy: Asia's suffering By THE ECONOMIST
Published:The Economist February 03, 2009

China's lunar new year sees the world's largest migration, as tens of millions of workers flock home. Deserting for a few days the factories that make the goods that fill the world's shops, they surge back to their native villages. This week, however, as they feasted to the deafening rattle of the firecrackers lit to greet the Year of the Ox, their celebrations had an anxious tinge. Many will not have jobs to go back to.

China's breakneck growth has stalled. The rest of East Asia, too, which had hoped that it was somehow "decoupled" from the economic trauma of the West, has found itself hit as hard as anywhere in the world--and in some cases harder. The temptation is to see this as a plague visited on the region from outside, which its governments are powerless to resist or cure. In truth, their policy errors have played their part in the downturn, so the remedies are partly in their hands.

The scale and speed of that downturn is breathtaking, and broader in scope than in the financial crisis of 1997-98. China's GDP, which expanded by 13% in 2007, scarcely grew at all in the last quarter of 2008 on a seasonally adjusted basis. In the same quarter Japan's GDP is estimated to have fallen at an annualised rate of 10%, Singapore's at 17% and South Korea's at 21%. Industrial-production numbers have fallen even more dramatically, plummeting in Taiwan, for example, by 32% in the year to December.

Nobody's buying it

The immediate causes are plain enough: destocking on a huge scale and a collapse in exports. Even in China, exports are spluttering, down by 2.8% in December compared with the previous year. That month Japan's fell by 35% and Singapore's by 20%. Falls in imports are often even starker: China's were down by 21% in December; Vietnam's by 45% in January. Some had suggested that soaring intra-regional trade would protect Asia against a downturn in the West. But that's not happening, because trade within Asia is part of a globalised supply chain which is ultimately linked to demand in the rich world.

Some Asians are blaming the West. The Western consensus in favour of globalisation lured them, they say, into opening their economies and pursuing export-led growth to satisfy the bottomless pit of Western consumer demand. They have been betrayed. Western financial incompetence has trashed the value of their investments and consumer demand has dried up. This explanation, which absolves Asian governments of responsibility for economic suffering, has an obvious appeal across the region.

Awkwardly, however, it tells only one part of the story. Most of the slowdown in regional economic growth so far stems not from a fall in net exports but from weaker domestic demand. Even in China, the region's top exporter, imports are falling faster than exports.

Domestic demand has been weak not just because of the gloomy global outlook, but also because of government policies. After the crisis a decade ago, many countries fixed their broken financial systems, but left their economies skewed towards exports. Savings remained high and domestic consumption was suppressed. Partly out of fright at the balance-of-payments pressures faced then, countries have run large trade surpluses and built up huge foreign-exchange reserves. Thus the savings of poor Asian farmers have financed the habits of spendthrift Westerners.

That's not all bad. One consequence is that Asian governments have plenty of scope for boosting domestic demand and thus spurring economic recovery. China, in particular, has the wherewithal to make good on its promises of massive economic stimulus. A big public-works programme is the way to go, because it needs the investment anyway. When Japan spent heavily on infrastructure to boost its economy in the early 1990s, much of the money was wasted, because it was not short of the stuff. China, by contrast, could still do with more and better bridges, roads and railways.

Safety in numbers

Yet infrastructure spending alone is not a long-term solution. This sort of stimulus will sooner or later become unaffordable, and growth based on it will run out of steam. To get onto a sustainable long-term growth path--and to help pull the rest of the world out of recession--Asia's economies need to become less dependent on exports in other ways.

Asian governments must introduce structural reforms that encourage people to spend and reduce the need for them to save. In China, farmers must be given reliable title to their land so that they can borrow money against it or sell it. In many countries, including China, governments need to establish safety-nets that ease worries about the cost of children's education and of health care. And across Asia, economies need to shift away from increasingly capital-intensive manufacturing towards labour-intensive services, so that a bigger share of national income goes to households.

For Asian governments trying to fix their countries' problems, the temptation is to reach for familiar tools--mercantilist currency policies to boost exports. But the region's leaders seem to realise that a round of competitive devaluation will help no one. China has responded to American accusations of currency "manipulation" by denying it has any intention of devaluing the yuan to boost exports. Structural reforms to boost demand would not only help cushion the blow to Asia's poor and thus help avert an explosion of social unrest that governments such as China's fear; they would also help counter the relentless rise in protectionist pressure in the West.

If emerging Asia needs a warning of the dangers of relying on exports, it need look no further than Japan. Japan's decade-long stagnation ended in 2002, thanks to a boom in exports, especially to China. Now, largely because of its failure to tackle the root causes of weak domestic demand, it is taking more of an economic hiding than any other rich country. Japan used to see itself as the lead goose in a regional flight formation, showing the way to export-led prosperity. It is time for the other geese to break ranks.