Japan reduces the expectations of the annual GDP growth, and consumers "shrink" under high inflation. Can the super loose monetary policy boost the economy?

21st Century Business Herald reporter Hu Huiyin Guangzhou report

The prospects of the Japanese economic recovery are becoming dull.

On July 26, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced the "World Economic Outlook". Among them, Japan's growth rate was expected to be reduced by 0.7 percentage points to 1.7%.

In fact, the Japanese government has already felt the crisis approaching. On July 25, the Japanese Cabinet Mansion announced that the actual economic GDP growth rate in 2022 will be 2.0%, which is significantly reduced by a 3.2%outlook from the Cabinet Conference in January. Regarding the reasons for the reduction, the Japanese government attributed this to its personal consumption recovery. The most fundamental factor is that in the context of the conflict between the geographical situation and the epidemic, the global economic slowdown, and the device investment and exports have slowed down.

As early as two weeks ago, Nikashiko Kuroda, the governor of the Bank of Japan, warned that Japan's economic prospects were very uncertain. As for the means of response, he said that the Bank of Japan is closely paying close attention to the impact of currency trends on the economy, and once again emphasizes that the central bank is preparing to increase stimulus as needed to support fragile recovery.

However, the "Pigeon" faction to the end did not achieve its expected effect. The first is inflation. The core CPI in Japan rose 2.2%year -on -year, and it has been higher than the 2%goal of the Bank of Japan for the third consecutive month. Settlement. Not only is there a gap with the expected effect, but more importantly, the expansion of monetary policy differences between Japan and other major economies in the world has further exacerbated the vicious depreciation of the yen.

Even so, the Bank of Japan still insists on implementing a loose monetary policy and said that if necessary, it will not hesitate to take more loose measures. Cui Cheng, a researcher at the Macroeconomic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission and the first -class secretary of the Chinese Embassy in Japan in Japan, said in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald reporter: "From the current domestic economic and inflation situation, and the devaluation of the yen Continue to implement the conditions for loose monetary policy, if the policy continues not only to continue the risk, it will also bring unexpected negative impact. "

In terms of monetary policy decision -making, can Japan regain recovery momentum?

The inflation rising influences geometry?

Although Japan has successfully pushed the level of inflation 2%, now the increasingly rising inflation has become a heart disease.

According to data from the Ministry of General Affairs of Japan, in June, the core consumer price index (CPI) except fresh food (CPI) except fresh foods increased by 2.2%year -on -year to 101.7, which has been higher than the 2%goal of the Bank of Japan for the third consecutive month. Core inflation is still high, but the growth of the overall consumer price index in Japan seems to have slowed down. The overall price in Japan rose 2.4%year -on -year, which was slightly narrowed by 2.5%year -on -year from April and May. From the perspective of data alone, Japan's overall inflation seems to have a preliminary sign.

But many interviewed experts were not optimistic about this. Cui Cheng said to the 21st Century Business Herald, "Whether Japan's inflation is topped does not depend on Japan itself, but is affected by the changes in the price of commodities such as global energy, fertilizers, and food. Among them, the Fed's interest rate hikes and effects of interest rate hikes and effects It plays the most important role. In addition, the super -volume width policy and the large -scale fiscal stimulus policy implemented for cope with the epidemic have also played an important role in promoting. "

Liu Yun, an associate researcher at the Chinese Institute of Modern International Relations, told reporters from the 21st Century Business Herald that the exogenous factors of the current inflation pressure in Japan have not fundamentally changed, and the international situation will continue to be turbulent in the future.

High inflation is eroding the spending power of Japanese families.

The results of the investigation released by the Ministry of General Affairs of Japan showed that the impact of deducting price factors, Japan's actual household consumption expenditure in May in May decreased by 0.5%year -on -year, a year -on -year decline of three consecutive months. The report shows that the average consumption expenditure of two people in Japan and above in May is 288,000 yen. Of the ten consumption categories survey, seven categories of expenditures have decreased year -on -year, including related costs related to car purchase and residential repair, fresh fruits and vegetables, and food expenditure.

At the same time as the price of prices soared, Japan's actual salary increase has appeared in two years. According to data from the Ministry of Health Labor, Japan, in May this year, the actual salary after inflation adjustment in Japan decreased by 1.8%year -on -year, which was 1.7%in April.

Although inflation and salary have shrunk, the Bank of Japan is not worried. In this regard, some members of the Bank of Japan believe that it is necessary to maintain ultra -low interest rates to support the economy and ensure that the salary is also increased while the inflation is rising. It is also believed that salary increase is the key to sustainable 2%inflation target.

Sun Lijian, director of the Financial Research Center of Fudan University, said in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald that the effect of salary increase will be "cure and not cure". "Because the current Japanese problem is that the shrinking consumer thinking has not changed. The core reason is that Japan is Japan. The problem of declining childization and aging directly affects the recovery of Japan's consumption power, especially the consumption of durable goods that involve large expenditures but are vital to economic recovery. Only by carrying out economic structural reforms can Japan alleviate the lack of domestic demand to a large extent. question."

Because Japan's natural resources are seriously dependent on overseas imports, the input -type inflation pressure is huge. In order to eliminate the pressure of input inflation, the Japanese government will launch a total of about 260 billion yen (about 13 billion yuan) subsidy plans in August to support home power saving points and fertilizers used by farmers. In order to reduce the burden of high electricity bills to the public, the Kishida government issued a power -saving point system and will use the power -saving project of the power company to issue points. First of all, it is planned to issue points equivalent to 2,000 yen from the registration of the registration project from August. It is expected that the project will be supported from about 180 billion yen from the reserve fee.

"For Japan, this round of inflation is caused by the Russian -Ukraine conflict. The excessive volume and large -scale fiscal stimulus of developed economies can be solved far from Japan and requires cooperative cooperation between major countries." Cui Cheng told reporters The Japanese government forced to adopt salaries and subsidies is not enough to reverse the situation of consumption downturn.

As for when the cost of life can end, Cui Cheng believes that it mainly depends on the two aspects. First of all, the strength and effect of the Fed and other increased currency tightening policies, and the duration of the Russian and Ukraine conflict; second, whether the European and American economies will decline in decline Essence "The inflation duration is very uncertain, but it is inevitable that it will not be obvious this year." He added.

Economic downward pressure

The pressure of inflation is lingering, and Japan's economic uncertainty is increasing. At present, while trying to promote consumption, Japan also puts its energy on the other two of the "three -driving troiders" that drive economic growth, namely export and investment.

On July 25, the Japanese Cabinet House stated at the Economic and Financial Consultation Conference that Japan's residential investment and equipment investment caused by the rise in material prices and the epidemic conditions caused by the obstruction of supply. The equipment investment is not satisfactory, and at the same time, Japan has reported a good news in terms of exports.

According to the trade data in the first half of 2022 announced by the Ministry of Finance of Japan, Japan's total export volume was 4.59378 trillion yen, an increase of 15.2%, a record high. But there are still shortcomings that the increase in its exports is still lower than imports. On the whole, Japan's trade revenue and expenditure in the first half of 2022 had a deficit of 792.41 trillion yen (about 57.8 billion US dollars), which was the largest value since 1979. In this regard, Liu Yun said that the increase in exports is related to changes in exchange rates, international market demand, and changes in production costs. Now, due to the rise in energy prices, the trade deficit has become a common thing in Japan.

At present, not only the trade deficit is prominent, but the export advantage of Japan has gradually weakened. The initial value of the manufacturing procurement manager index (PMI) in Japan in July fell from 52.7 in June to 52.2. The manufacturing activity was the slowest expansion in 10 months. Due to the contraction of the output and the new orders, the new export orders were 5 consecutive consecutive consecutiveth. A month contracted. On the other hand, from the horizontal comparison, South Korea, also an export -oriented economy, is also troubled by the trade deficit. According to data released by the Ministry of Commerce Resources of South Korea, the export scale of South Korea from January to June this year was US $ 350.3 billion, an increase of 15.6%over the same period last year. From the perspective of amount, the total exports in South Korea exceeded Japan's data in the same period in the first half of the year.

In this regard, Cui Cheng believes that from the comparison between Japan and South Korea, the population is only 1/3 of South Korea in Japan, and its total exports are close to Japan, indicating that the competitiveness of Japan ’s exports has indeed declined significantly. The strategy of exports is not feasible.

In the view of Sun Lijian, Japan's export trade also has a relatively short -term deficiency in trade structure. "Japan's export industry is mainly advanced materials and automobiles and components. Take cars as an example. After the epidemic, the car supply chain is limited and a serious blow to Japan's trade." It is a vertical diversified development. If Japan wants to further make up for its own trade structure, it will be difficult to complete in a short time. Moreover, the disadvantage of the development of Japanese industries is the lack of disruptive innovation.

The "three -driving carriage" stimulation of the economic effect is affected, and Japan has cope with the continued implementation of loose monetary policies. The Bank of Japan said that the Japanese economy is recovering, although it is slow. In addition, the Bank of Japan rarely mentioned the foreign exchange market in the statement, saying that it would pay close attention to the foreign exchange trend and did not hesitate to increase the easing policy when necessary.

Sun Lijian believes that there are two factors for the reason why the Bank of Japan continues to implement loose monetary policies: "First of all, Japan's natural resources seriously depend on overseas imports, so the unstable geographical situation and the impact of global production data will have the economy of Japan's economy. Caused a significant impact; secondly, the epidemic caused the supply chain to be blocked. Now the seventh wave of Japan's epidemic is aggressive, resulting in many production materials that cannot complete production, and the logistics link is not smooth and the price rises. Rating rate hikes will increase corporate financing costs. "

Recently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Japanese Cabinet Mansion have disappeared with Japan's economic growth rate, which cannot help but make the outside world doubt that Japan's implementation of "Abe Economics" has been suspected of economic promotion for many years.

"It is undeniable that during the operation of 'Abe's Economics', especially the loose monetary policy in its three arrows did improve the business environment to the listed company, and the scenarios of the investment willingness and employment of large enterprises all appeared. Improve. Therefore, the Bank of Japan wants to adhere to this loose currency policy to expand the record, but in fact, it is difficult to achieve this expected effect by more SMEs. " The wealth effect of the stock market brought by the policy is mainly to reduce the financing cost of listed companies and improve the ability to increase leverage. In addition, their investment opportunities in overseas markets will bring a recovery of performance. However It is often difficult to achieve the effect of large companies. Sun Lijian further stated that the current supply chain and partners of large Japanese enterprises are not from domestic SMEs, coupled with the influence of domestic tourism and consumption capabilities affected by the peripheral epidemic, the operating performance of small and medium -sized enterprises is greatly discounted; in addition The severe inflation in the United States has prompted the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates sharply, leading to a significant depreciation of the yen, and Japan's export capabilities will be negatively affected. Therefore, it is really difficult to continue to expand the results through loose monetary policies and "Abe Economics" in the future.

In addition, Sun Lijian told reporters that the implementation of the loose monetary policy of the three arrows of "Abe Economics" is not clear, and it is also in the population structure of Japanese aging declining child. For talent shortages, it is difficult for Japan to focus on the competition of craftsman -type industries, and put energy on structural transformation, such as driving domestic demand by developing the service industry, increasing vitality to the service industry. The economic downturn and the difficulty of improving the service industry. The main reason is that the service industry is more facing the domestic market, but the shrinking thinking that the domestic domestic dare not consume has not changed. If so, even if it is invested in a large amount of quantitative easing, Japan's in Japan The service industry is also difficult to achieve prosperity. "

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