China’s 12th Five-Year Plan, adopted last month, provides the road map it will follow. Yet it is not really a plan; rather, it is a coherent interconnected set of policy priorities to support the economy’s structural evolution – and thus to maintain rapid growth – over the period of the plan and beyond.

　　So a great deal is at stake, both internally and externally. Growth in the world’s emerging economies now depends on China, the main export partner for a growing list of major economies including Japan, South Korea, India, and Brazil.

　　There are at least five important interconnected transitions embedded in China’s new Five-Year Plan:

　　• Changing the economy’s growth model or supply side structure, as labor costs rise, global market shares become large enough to limit expansion, and advanced countries’ growth momentum slows for an unknown period of time;

　　• Rebalancing demand, from investment and exports to domestic consumption;

　　• Accommodating a rapidly urbanizing population, and ensuring that incentives are structured to bring about as orderly a process of social change as possible;

　　• Building the institutions necessary for achieving inclusiveness and equal opportunity;

　　• Assuming international responsibility for stability, growth, and sustainability, including tackling climate change.

　　The challenge for China is implementation, which means reform and systemic change. International experience suggests that the balance between planning and markets shifts toward markets as countries becomes richer. The structural evolution that underpins growth will increasingly be driven by market opportunities and entrepreneurial initiative. A huge number of new businesses need to be created.

　　To support this shift, much is required. Labor-intensive industries in the tradable sector must be allowed to decline. Many companies may survive, but only by moving to different parts of the global economy or up the value-added chain domestically: up or out. A rising nominal and real exchange rate can propel structural change; a weak-currency policy is a trap.

　　The financial sector must be developed in order to create more savings options and supply credit and equity capital efficiently to new and growing businesses, which China needs in order to attract the rural population to cities (even as export sectors move up the skill and value-added hierarchy). Many of these jobs will be in the domestic, urban, non-tradable service sector.

　　But urbanization faces another obstacle: the hukou system of residency permits, which restricts mobility and bars migrants (an estimated 200 million people) from becoming full-status urban citizens. Chinese officials’ reluctance to eliminate hukou quickly reflects their observation of the social consequences of rapid or unbalanced urbanization elsewhere, though problems caused by internal migration in other countries typically reflect the absence of opportunity in rural areas, not the attraction of opportunities in urban areas.

　　As the scope of the private sector expands, legal structures and policies that support competition, entry and exit, market openness, intellectual property, and social safety nets will also be needed. The move to higher-value-added links of domestic and global supply chains will require more effective education and expanded investment in the economy’s intellectual and technological underpinnings. The balance between technology imports and domestic innovation will continue to shift steadily toward the latter.

　　The Chinese public sector has a huge balance sheet, including land, a vast array of infrastructure, massive foreign-exchange reserves, and major equity positions in state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which account for more than one-half of net fixed assets and one-third of profits in the corporate sector. In all countries, these assets should be held in trust for citizens and deployed in pursuit of economic and social development. China has an exemplary record in this area. Unlike most countries, China has not struggled to get public-sector investment up to levels that support sustained high growth.

　　But there are now issues. Investments are justified and support economic and social development when they have high private and social returns. Elements of the investment portfolio in the public sector and the SOEs are beginning to fail this test.

　　To be fair, given the SOEs’ legacy costs (stemming from their responsibilities for social services and insurance), together with their financial distress in the 1990’s, it made sense for a while to let them keep their retained earnings and not place additional claims on them through the government budget.

　　No longer. If SOEs’ reinvested income is not subject to a high return criterion, growth will eventually slow. The portion that falls short needs to be redirected to higher-return investments in either the public or private sector, to household income, or to essential public services and social insurance.

　　The SOEs compete in product and labor markets with the private sector, but less so in capital markets. While wages and incomes are rising now and appear to have broken the iron grip of the surplus labor pool, the growth pattern requires this structural demand-side shift toward more disposable income, greater government consumption, and high-return investment. We suspect but do not know that consumption will increase. Properly recycled savings, including corporate profits, could go back mainly into high-return public- or private-sector investments. Both contribute to aggregate domestic demand, and the structural shifts on the supply side will be driven by the “right” mix of aggregate demand, with the low-return component on the investment side removed.

　　Thus, the Five-Year Plan’s goal is to recompose (not expand) aggregate demand in order to sustain growth and avoid the diminishing-returns trap that is the principal risk of China’s current investment pattern. Changing that pattern will require a restructured financial system that allocates savings efficiently, based on fiscal and capital-market discipline and corporate-governance reform. Designing that system will be an important part of achieving the high-return investment and expanded consumption that Chinese leaders want – and that China’s economy needs.

　　中國(guó)剛通過(guò)的“十二五”規(guī)劃，為其發(fā)展軌道制定了路線(xiàn)圖。不管從其內(nèi)部還是外部考慮，一場(chǎng)巨變都即將開(kāi)始。在新的“十二五”規(guī)劃中，至少體現(xiàn)出五個(gè)重要轉(zhuǎn)變：

　　第一，隨著勞動(dòng)力成本的上漲，全球市場(chǎng)的份額已達(dá)到足以限制進(jìn)一步擴(kuò)張的程度，以及在一段長(zhǎng)短未知的時(shí)期內(nèi)發(fā)達(dá)國(guó)家的經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)動(dòng)力放緩。因此，中國(guó)的經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)模式及供應(yīng)端的結(jié)構(gòu)會(huì)出現(xiàn)轉(zhuǎn)變。

　　第二，從投資、出口到消費(fèi)，重新實(shí)現(xiàn)需求的平衡。

　　第三，接納迅速城市化的人口，確保一系列激勵(lì)機(jī)制已經(jīng)建立，能夠確保類(lèi)似于老齡化這樣的社會(huì)變化過(guò)程的平穩(wěn)度過(guò)成為可能。

　　第四，為了提供非排他且公平的機(jī)遇，建立一系列必要的機(jī)構(gòu)。

　　第五，在維護(hù)穩(wěn)定、增長(zhǎng)以及可持續(xù)發(fā)展方面承擔(dān)國(guó)際性責(zé)任，包括應(yīng)對(duì)全球氣候變化。

　　對(duì)于中國(guó)而言，其挑戰(zhàn)在于如何將其貫徹實(shí)施。為了支撐這一改變，必須允許貿(mào)易部門(mén)中一系列勞動(dòng)密集型產(chǎn)業(yè)的衰落。

　　這些行業(yè)里的很多公司可能仍會(huì)生存下來(lái)，但可行的方式只能是通過(guò)轉(zhuǎn)移至全球經(jīng)濟(jì)的不同區(qū)域，或者是升級(jí)至國(guó)內(nèi)的高附加值生產(chǎn)鏈條。也就是說(shuō)，要么升級(jí)，要么出局。名義匯率和實(shí)際匯率的不斷升值能適當(dāng)助力結(jié)構(gòu)轉(zhuǎn)變，而疲軟的貨幣政策則是一個(gè)陷阱。

　　為創(chuàng)造更多的儲(chǔ)蓄選擇，且針對(duì)新型及發(fā)展中的一系列行業(yè)有效地提供信用及實(shí)體資本，金融部門(mén)應(yīng)該變得成熟起來(lái)。這種轉(zhuǎn)變是中國(guó)所需要的，以便吸引農(nóng)村人口向城市轉(zhuǎn)移，尤其是在出口行業(yè)向技能和高附加值的行業(yè)轉(zhuǎn)移的大背景下。

　　但中國(guó)的城市化還面臨著一個(gè)難題——城市戶(hù)口體系。這一體系限制人口流動(dòng)，給農(nóng)民移民成為正式城市居民設(shè)定了一系列的限制。

　　中國(guó)官員們?cè)谘杆偃∠麘?hù)口制度方面所表現(xiàn)出的不情愿，其所反映出來(lái)的，是他們對(duì)于其他國(guó)家的城市化過(guò)程中所表現(xiàn)出來(lái)的一系列社會(huì)后果的認(rèn)識(shí)。在其他國(guó)家，內(nèi)部移民所導(dǎo)致的一系列問(wèn)題反射出的是農(nóng)村地區(qū)缺乏機(jī)會(huì)，而不是城市地區(qū)里的一系列機(jī)會(huì)的吸引力。

　　隨著私營(yíng)部門(mén)規(guī)模的擴(kuò)大，法律及政策體系支持競(jìng)爭(zhēng)、市場(chǎng)準(zhǔn)入、市場(chǎng)退出、市場(chǎng)公開(kāi)及社會(huì)保障體系等方面的法律體系需要健全。

　　要實(shí)現(xiàn)向國(guó)內(nèi)及全球經(jīng)濟(jì)供應(yīng)鏈條中高附加值環(huán)節(jié)的轉(zhuǎn)變，將需要的是更加有效的教育，以及在經(jīng)濟(jì)的產(chǎn)權(quán)和技術(shù)領(lǐng)域里的加大投資。

　　中國(guó)的公共部門(mén)擁有龐大的資產(chǎn)負(fù)債表，健全的基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施，大量的外匯儲(chǔ)備及對(duì)于國(guó)有企業(yè)的絕對(duì)掌控地位。在所有國(guó)家，這些資產(chǎn)應(yīng)為了服務(wù)人民而掌握在信托基金手中，其行為應(yīng)服務(wù)于經(jīng)濟(jì)和社會(huì)發(fā)展的目標(biāo)。

　　而在這一領(lǐng)域，中國(guó)是一個(gè)例外。與絕大多數(shù)國(guó)家不同，中國(guó)并沒(méi)有努力讓公共部門(mén)的投資水平達(dá)到可以支持持續(xù)高增長(zhǎng)的水平。

　　只有當(dāng)一系列的投資能取得一系列高額的私人和社會(huì)回報(bào)時(shí)，這些投資才是合理的，才能支持經(jīng)濟(jì)和社會(huì)的發(fā)展。公平地說(shuō)，考慮到國(guó)有企業(yè)的遺留成本，加上其在1990年的糟糕表現(xiàn)，讓它們能留存收益且不通過(guò)政府預(yù)算使其承擔(dān)更多的責(zé)任，在一段時(shí)期內(nèi)保持這種局面是合情合理的。

　　然而，情況已不再是這樣。如果國(guó)有企業(yè)的再投資收益不受高回報(bào)率的制約，最終增長(zhǎng)的速度將會(huì)放緩。沒(méi)能滿(mǎn)足一系列要求的這部分資源，將會(huì)被重新投入到能獲得更高回報(bào)率的投資領(lǐng)域里。

　　為維持經(jīng)濟(jì)增長(zhǎng)且避免出現(xiàn)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，“十二五”規(guī)劃的目標(biāo)是將龐大的總需求重組。而改變舊有的格局，則需要重建金融體系。

　　新體系將以財(cái)政和資本市場(chǎng)準(zhǔn)則的建立以及公司治理為基礎(chǔ)。新體系可以有效配置儲(chǔ)蓄資金。設(shè)計(jì)這種新體系將成為實(shí)現(xiàn)高回報(bào)率投資和擴(kuò)大消費(fèi)目標(biāo)的重要手段，而這也正是中國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)所需要的。