After the government initially initiates the resumption of work and production through visible hands, it must assess the situation, gradually lift strict administrative regulations, and give full play to the role of the market. The second half of the resumption of work and production must be gradually completed through market mechanisms.
Text/"Autobot" commentator? Zhao Ying
On March 19, according to the National Health Commission's report, the number of new COVID-19 patients in Hubei and Wuhan has dropped to zero. On March 20th, the "Spring Equinox" solar term has arrived, and spring is here! After experiencing the virus attack and almost "freezing" the country, everything recovered and China's society and economy restarted. The topic of concern to the government and society has gradually shifted from fighting the epidemic to how to revive society and the economy.
In a sense, accelerating China's socio-economic recovery is also a strategic issue whether China can seize the opportunity to make up for the serious losses in the past two months and take advantage of the momentum. The government has done a good job in this regard, and large state-owned enterprises have played a mainstay role in making China's society and economy stand firm when the cold wave hits. For example, during the crisis, the Chinese government and large state-owned enterprises maintained the operation of national and even global infrastructure (including energy, transportation, information and communications), thereby avoiding major trauma to China's basic social and economic systems; the Chinese government and large state-owned enterprises The price stability of basic necessities and consumer goods for the people has been maintained; the Chinese government and large state-owned enterprises mobilized urgently to provide a stable supply of basic medical equipment and drugs needed to fight the epidemic, and to support other countries. Now, China has entered a period of restarting its entire society and economy. Resumption of work and production is a top priority, and various government support measures and policies have been introduced one after another. I believe the results will be seen in about a month.
As I look up at the stars, I have some scattered thoughts on the resumption of work and production. I write it down for reference by all walks of life, which can be regarded as making some contribution to the country.
In the stage of resuming work and production, the country must achieve two transitions:
From a rapidly "frozen" and relatively static anti-epidemic state in the crisis response stage to a dynamic, A state that not only prevents the resurgence of the epidemic, but also initiates social and economic development, balances the resumption of work and production, and then restores daily status. In the near future, the latter state will be the normal state of social and economic operations. How to institutionalize and retain certain practices during crises for long-term benefits and prevent emergencies, while gradually lifting strict regulations during crises, is a challenge facing the current government.
The government takes the lead in resuming work and production, and in the middle and later stages of the transition period, it gradually turns to market-induced resumption of work and production. After the government initially initiates the resumption of work and production through visible hands (for example, the government directly intervenes in the transportation of migrant workers, exempting small and medium-sized enterprises from various fiscal and financial burdens), it must assess the situation, gradually lift strict administrative regulations, and give full play to the role of the market. The second half of the resumption of work and production must be gradually completed through market mechanisms.
During the transitional period of resumption of work and production, economic startup and recovery, the following points are worth thinking about:
First of all, depending on the epidemic situation, administrative regulations should be gradually lifted to allow the social and economic systems to operate again. should be placed at the forefront of all policies. At present, the government has launched various fiscal and financial policies, which are sufficient to meet the short-term needs of enterprises to alleviate difficulties. However, in order for enterprises to move forward, they must ultimately rely on market demand, and the administrative and physical isolation between people and things in the past two months must be improved and gradually "unfrozen". Otherwise, people will not be able to get out, logistics will be sluggish, and tax reductions and exemptions and financial easing will be in vain.
The current fiscal, taxation, and financial policies introduced by the government are sufficient, but they must be accompanied by the lifting of administrative regulations in order to be effective. At the same time, we must prevent excessive "flooding" at the moment. Excessive release of currency is both ineffective and accelerates inflation.
Secondly, the domestic market can only be used as the main driving force for economic development in 2020 or even 2021. The international market should be steadily developed based on the domestic market. Even if the international market can gradually recover (it would be lucky not to have a huge economic crisis), it will only be in the second half of the year. The domestic market should increase public consumption as soon as possible as the epidemic disappears. Local government officials have paid sufficient attention to this aspect. For example, city government leaders in Nanjing and other places took the lead in taking to the streets for consumption.
By the way, in order to restore the prosperity of Nanjing, Zeng Guofan also led his officials to go boating on the Qinhuai River for fun. Zeng Wenzheng, who has always advocated Neo-Confucianism, did this simply to stimulate consumption and boost popularity. Currently, the demand-side restart should be higher than the supply-side restart.
Third, we must attach great importance to the recovery of the tertiary industry. The tertiary industry ranks first in my country's economic structure. The tertiary industry is relatively easy to restart and recover, and the recovery of employment is relatively rapid and the results are quick. It is in line with the logic of economic development to activate the tertiary industry and then promote the development of the secondary industry and the primary industry. In response to the epidemic, the tertiary industry has also generated a large number of new business formats and new demands, which will surely give new impetus to my country's economic recovery.
Fourth, in the recovery of the secondary industry, the recovery of the physical industrial chain is more important than other aspects. At present, the main problem facing manufacturing companies is not the return of migrant workers, but the smooth operation of the industrial chain and the guarantee of the supply chain. In the first half of the epidemic, the main issue was the assurance and recovery of the domestic supply chain. In the second half of the epidemic, the problems mainly came from overseas.
The economic operations of developed countries such as Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea are almost frozen, and businesses are shut down. Some countries are even hostile to my country, adding insult to injury. This will gradually lead to problems in overseas supply chains, and there may be supply interruptions and shortages of many key components and key raw materials. The government must activate emergency measures, organize manpower, and create a list of key components and key raw materials that may have a wide and deep impact due to supply cuts and shortages. Through administrative means, it must urgently organize domestic enterprises to make up for the shortcomings of the supply chain.
During the post-war economic recovery period, the Japanese government adopted a "tilted production method" to promote industrial recovery, which is worth learning from. To put it simply, it means to find key industries and key links related to the operation of the entire industrial system and start them by the government, thereby driving the recovery of the entire economic system. According to this idea, the Japanese government started with the coal industry, then led to the recovery of the steel industry, and successfully promoted the restart of the industrial system.
Finally, I would like to talk about the restart of the automobile industry. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the automobile industry has worsened, with sales falling sharply. In order to restart the automobile industry, the country has successively introduced many policies to promote automobile consumption, but no obvious results have been seen yet. This is because for all policies to be effective, the entire social and economic system must gradually lift administrative regulations and restore a broad and diverse space for communication between people. A few days ago, a reporter asked me whether the current "online car sales" could replace car sales in 4S stores. My answer was: Impossible. The reason lies in the characteristics of automobile consumption and the current difficulty for consumers to go out. I estimate that as administrative regulations are lifted, it is more convenient to go out (including traveling), and people go into 4S stores again, there will be a small upsurge in car consumption, but it will not be too prosperous throughout the year. After all, two consecutive years of decline represent a certain trend. The automobile industry has to wait until next year for decent performance. Right now, the automobile industry needs to be wary of problems in foreign supply chains, and this is a high probability event!
China’s epidemic and economic ups and downs are exactly opposite to those in developed countries, leaving a time lag for China. If China can seize this time gap, it will be beneficial to economic recovery.
However, whether we can seize the time difference and realize the current government's idea of ??restarting the economy depends on a rather thorny issue: how to effectively and decisively resist external input of the epidemic.
From 0 to 24:00 on March 18, 34 newly imported confirmed cases were reported (21 cases in Beijing, 9 cases in Guangdong, 2 cases in Shanghai, 1 case in Heilongjiang, and 1 case in Zhejiang). As of 24:00 on March 18, a total of 189 confirmed cases imported from abroad have been reported. If this situation continues, it will not only make it difficult for our country to abolish severe administrative regulations quickly, but also affect the psychological expectations of enterprises for economic recovery and the psychological expectations of people's consumption, and lose the hard-won time difference.
Both the epidemic and the coming crisis have impacted the international division of labor system and the supply chain attached to it. Epidemics and capital both have the same sense of smell and can identify low-risk areas. Maintaining the normal operation of the economy is China's greatest ability to resist risks. (Text/"Autobot" commentator? Zhao Ying, some pictures are from the Internet) Copyright Statement This article is an exclusive original manuscript of "Autobot", and the copyright belongs to "Autobot".
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.