今年中國可能會發生哪些事

今年中國可能會發生哪些事？
盡管存在通脹、破產以及其他一些問題，但工業企業應該仍然能保持較高的盈利水平。

2011年2月 • 歐高敦

麥肯錫上海分公司資深董事歐高敦仔細審視2011年的中國，希望發現中國可能會以什么方式再次使全世界刮目相看。請閱讀他做出的6項預測，然后告訴我們您還會增加哪些預測。

要控制住食品價格的上漲將需要比預期更長的時間。通貨膨脹更多是由結構性而非周期性的因素推動的。事實上，現在整個系統受到極大的壓力，由于煤炭短缺，一次雪災就會使食品和能源價格大幅上漲。如果冰雪阻斷了道路，正如目前在中國西南的許多地方那樣，農產品就根本無法進入市場。

隨著人們變得更富裕，中國的消費模式正在轉變——人們食用更多的肉食，需要用更多谷物來喂養家畜和家禽。在極限狀態下運轉的食品供應鏈已接近斷裂，這一問題造成的壓力將導致更嚴重的食品質量危機。此外，價格管制對于更好地平衡供應與需求之間的關系并不會有太大效果。食品價格上漲是整個亞洲共同面臨的問題：最近，在印尼（辣椒）、印度（洋蔥）和韓國（大白菜，以及目前因口蹄疫而受到影響的牛肉），食品價格都在飛漲。鑒于中國對許多農產品巨大的絕對需求，她將會影響整個亞洲的食品價格。

中國一個主要的二級或三級城市，將會因為食品價格上漲、失業（或兩種原因都有）而爆發示威活動，其規模將比最近幾年曾發生過的此類事件大得多。通過由當地政府采取行動，增加對示威民眾的財政支持，以及撤換地方政府領導人，示威者可能很快就會感到滿意。然而，由于擔心其他地方的民眾群起仿效，將會導致在全國范圍內采取預防性計劃，加大對城鎮失業人員的救助。

中產階級的破產將會急劇增多。購房者用自己能自由支配的所有現金踴躍地購置多套房產。引發一波破產浪潮所需的一切就是利率的進一步提高（其目標是抑制通脹），它將引起房價快速下跌，以及房貸還款壓力增大。之前，我們已經在亞洲的一些主要城市看到過這種情況。政府可能會決定，它不能出手幫助這些人擺脫困境，因為這將被視為以犧牲窮人利益為代價，鼓勵富人不負責任的魯莽投資行為。目前在互聯網上已有很高的呼聲，大意是說，政府領導人完全脫離實際，不了解城市住房的真實成本。這些領導人必須采取切實行動，以表明自己與人民群眾不斷改善住房條件的愿望保持一致。

最低工資將會提高，但生產率的收益將會超過勞動力成本的上升。在2010年年底，工業企業的盈利能力仍然保持在很高水平——事實上，在許多情況下，比上年同期更高，盡管2010年的最低工資普遍有所提高——而且，可能仍將繼續保持在高位。然而，一個試圖提高低收入群體收入水平的政府將會發現，提高最低工資（或許提高15％～20％）是一種比較容易實施的拉動手段。跨國公司——特別是亞洲的跨國公司——將再次發現，自己將會首先受到合規監管。從更大的范圍來看，2011年，藍領工人向執法系統投訴雇主拒絕支付加班費，以及要求員工超時工作的數量可能會進一步增多。

中國的經濟增長將低于預期。2011年，削減對消費者的補貼將會導致消費啟動緩慢，將無法完全達到2010年的消費水平。例如，近幾個月來，購買汽車占到了消費的20％。隨著減少購車補貼、在北京（或許還有其他城市）實行購車配額，以及提高車輛上牌費和停車費，2011年的汽車銷量可能會停滯不前（如果不至于下降的話）。由于食品價格上漲，會導致低收入群體削減非食品開支和其他自主開支，將使消費不振的問題雪上加霜。

中國將加快其“十二五”“對外投資”計劃。在未來五年中，中國政府可能會努力將中國對外國的累計投資提高一倍。該計劃將會面臨一些國家（可能是在非洲、東歐和拉美）政府的抵制，這些國家的公眾輿論并不相信，讓中國擁有如此多關鍵資產的所有權確實具有吸引力。顯然，這種抵制會使中國領導人感到不悅，他們可能會決定拋售這些棘手政府的債券，并加大對來自這些國家的企業向中國國有企業銷售產品的審查力度。

國家將再次嘗試減持其在企業所有權中的股份。如果中國政府再次啟動其出售更多國有企業股份的計劃，國內的股市價格可能將會下跌（或至少持平）。該計劃還將吸收目前支持中國企業首次公開募股（IPO）的大量流動性，從而降低企業家通過IPO快速套現的能力。此外，一直在中國投資于上市前（pre-IPO）成長型股票的私募股權公司，可能會比計劃時間更長久地持有這些投資項目。

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What might happen in China this year?

Gordon Orr, a director in McKinsey’s Shanghai office, peers into 2011 and finds ways China may once again surprise the world. Read his six predictions, then let us know what you would add.

Inflation in food prices will take longer than expected to control. The drivers of inflation are much more structural than cyclical. Indeed, the entire system is now so highly stressed that one snowstorm brings large spikes in food and energy prices as coal runs short. When ice shuts down the roads, as it does today in much of southwestern China, agricultural products simply cannot get to market.

Chinese consumption patterns are shifting as people become wealthier—more meat eating requires more cereals to feed the animals. The food supply chain, running at the limit, is close to breaking, and the pressures this problem creates will lead to further food quality crises. What’s more, price caps won’t be effective in creating a better balance between supply and demand. Rising food prices are a pan-Asian issue: inflation has recently surged in Indonesia (chilies), India (onions), and South Korea (cabbage and now beef as a result of foot-and-mouth disease). China, given its large absolute demand for so many agricultural products, will shape food prices across Asia.

A major second- or third-tier Chinese city will see demonstrations over food price rises, unemployment, or both, on a much larger scale than anything that has occurred in recent years. The demonstrators will probably be satisfied quickly by local action to increase financial support for them and to replace local-government leaders. Yet concerns over copycat actions elsewhere will lead to a nationwide preemptive program to support the urban unemployed.

Middle-class bankruptcies will expand dramatically. Buyers have aggressively bought multiple properties with every penny of free cash flow. All that is needed for a wave of bankruptcies is further interest rate rises (targeting inflation) that result in a blip down in house prices just as mortgage payments rise. We have seen this before across major cities in Asia. The government will probably decide that it cannot bail such people out, as that would be seen as rewarding recklessness among the haves at the expense of the have-nots. There is already significant noise on the Internet to the effect that government leaders are completely out of touch with the true cost of urban housing. These leaders must take material action to show that they are aligned with the hopes of people just getting on the real-estate ladder.

Minimum wages will rise, but productivity gains will outstrip labor costs. The profitability of industrial enterprises remained high at the end of 2010—indeed, higher, in many cases, than it had been a year earlier, despite the minimum-wage increases rolled out in 2010—and will probably remain high. Yet a government seeking to enhance its stature with lower-income workers will find that increasing minimum wages, perhaps by 15 to 20 percent, is an easy lever to pull. Once again, multinationals, especially Asian multinationals, will find themselves being monitored first for compliance. More broadly, 2011 is likely to see further increases in the number of complaints that blue-collar workers bring in the legal system against employers for failure to pay overtime and to give employees the required time off from work.

China’s economic growth will be lower than expected. The rollback of subsidies to consumers will, in 2011, lead to a slow start for consumption, which will never quite catch up during the year. In recent months, for example, automotive purchases accounted for 20 percent of consumption. With the rollback of subsidies, the imposition of quotas in Beijing (and probably other cities), and increased prices for license plates and parking, car sales are likely to plateau if not fall in 2011. This problem will be exacerbated by food price inflation, which will cause lower-income workers to cut back on nonfood and other discretionary expenditures.

China will step up its “invest out” program in the new five-year plan. The government may well seek to double the country’s cumulative outbound investment within the next five years. There will be resistance by governments in some countries (probably in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America) where public opinion is not yet convinced that so much Chinese ownership of key assets is really attractive. This opposition will visibly upset China’s leaders, who may decide to sell the bonds of the reluctant governments and to increase the challenges that enterprises from these nations face in selling to Chinese state entities.

The state will again try to reduce its ownership role in business. If the government relaunches its program to sell off more of its stake in companies, domestic share prices will probably decline or at least remain flat. The program will also soak up much of the liquidity currently supporting Chinese IPOs, thus reducing the ability of entrepreneurs to cash out quickly through them. Also, private-equity firms that have been investing in pre-IPO growth stocks in China may hold on to these investments longer than planned.