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Market Mover - BNP PARIBAS - Investment Services India

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China’s ‘Lewis turning point’Returning to the parallels with China, the fact thatwages are on the rise in China’s urban coastalregions suggests surplus labour from the countrysideis tapering off – the Lewis turning point. Mediareports state that some companies have hiked wages200 or 300% in the last two to three years in order toretain workers from the countryside, althoughstatistics put the rate of increase at about 15%annually. Of course, the labour shortage in thecoastal areas also reflects curbs on internal migrationand increased industrialisation in China’s interior.Some argue, therefore, that China can maintain itsrobust trend growth as long as labour continues toflow to growth industries, wherever they mighthappen to be.China’s ‘harmonious society,’ a local version ofJapan’s ‘balanced national development?’Even so, it seems that China has adopted drasticpolicies to develop its interior much like Tanaka’smisguided vision for ‘remodelling’ Japan. In thispolicy, governments led by the LDP tried to preventoverpopulation in the cities and depopulation in thecountryside, by aggressively transferring income toreinvigorate Japan’s rural communities. Tanaka’s‘remodelling’ plan aimed to achieve ‘balancednational development.’ Needless to say, policiessuch as this, that prioritised curbing the free flow oflabour to cities probably impaired Japan’s trendgrowth. Could the same be happening in Chinatoday? The ‘harmonious society’ policy advocated byPresident Hu Jintao seems to entail a Chineseversion of ‘balanced national development.’ What ismore, China today is also starting to build up itssocial welfare systems, much like Japan did at thestart of the 1970s. In Japan, 1973 is known as the‘first year’ of social welfare, as free medical servicesfor the elderly and the index-linked pension wereintroduced under the Tanaka Cabinet.Allowing Chinese growth to shift lower is key toavoiding hard landingWe fear that because of supply-side constraintsChina will soon become unable to maintain 8% rangegrowth without soaring inflation. If our comparisonwith Japan is correct, and Chinese trend growth isstarting to shift lower, then China should be able toavoid a Japanese-style hard landing if it quicklyallows the economy to cool to a new cruising speedof under 8%. But most Chinese still see growthbelow 8% as a serious economic problem anddanger to employment. Consequently, they feel theauthorities should quickly shift to stimulative policiesto avert such a slowdown. If Beijing does this, though,121086420-2Chart 7: China’s GDP Deflator (% y/y)-400 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11Source: EcoWin, <strong>BNP</strong> Paribaswe fear they could follow the same path that Japantook. If that were to happen, the global economycould be severely impacted as many nations dependon the Chinese economy. This and contagion fromthe eurozone sovereign debt crisis are our top riskscenarios for 2012.Could the Chinese regime survive an experiencelike Japan’s?Japan was able to maintain social stability after itstrend growth halved, its inflation surged to 25% andits real estate bubble burst. However, there are fearsthat similar events in China could severely shake thecurrent political regime with broad geopoliticalramifications.Another Japanese policy mistakeJapan also made another policy mistake in the 1970sthat Beijing should heed, and that involves currencypolicy. During the two decades of rapid economicgrowth, Japan maintained a fixed exchange underthe old Bretton Woods Agreements, with the yen setat a weak 360yen per dollar. Such an exchange ratecaused significant inflationary pressures. Unliketoday, capital flows were strictly controlled, so a fixedexchange rate did not necessarily hamper monetarypolicy. Even so, keeping the yen at such a weaklevel relative to Japan’s economic fundamentalsmade it hard for monetary tightening to adequatelyrein in inflation.Delayed yen revaluationIf inflation is rising due to supply constraints and anoverly weak fixed exchange rate, the best course ofaction is a package of monetary tightening andcurrency revaluation. Japan in the 1970s, however,did not do this out of concern for damage toexporters, and so the 360 yen/dollar fixed ratecontinued until the 1971 Nixon Shock, the end of thedollar’s convertibility into gold. This mistakenadherence to an overly weak exchange rate alsocontributed to Japan’s Great Inflation.Ryutaro Kono 27 October 2011<strong>Market</strong> <strong>Mover</strong>24www.Global<strong>Market</strong>s.bnpparibas.com

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