중국 경제발전 방식 전환의 진전도 평가

Abstract

China had achieved rapid economic growth led by even more rapid increases in investment and exports until late 2000s. Such pattern of growth, however, became no longer feasible, as the internal and external conditions changed. In particular, negative consequences of the large-scale stimulus package responding to the 2008 global financial crisis, such as excess investment in manufacturing sectors and real estate, made the previous pattern not sustainable. Then, China has been attempting to transform its pattern of economic growth during its 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015). Goals of the transformation is to improve the quality and sustainability of economic growth while accepting lower growth rate. This paper is an attempt to assess whether meaningful progress has been made in this transformation. It first derives the accompanied structural changes of Chinese economy required for the transformation. They include the change in industrial structure, distribution structure, demand structure, and supply side sources of growth. Then, it finds empirical evidences regarding those structural changes based on the official Chinese statistics. Empirical findings suggest that some progresses were actually achieved to the right direction for that transformation. They, however, also suggest that the speed and extent of the transformation were rather slow and limited. These findings combined with the steadily declining growth rate imply that uncertainty has increased on the future prospect of Chinese economy.