Zheng Yongnian: What kind of structural reforms do private enterprises need?

Zheng Yongnian column

In terms of numbers, the status of private enterprises in the Chinese national economy is already unbreakable.People often describe the prominent positions of private enterprises based on 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, that is, the private economy contributes more than 50%of the Chinese economy's taxes, more than 60%of domestic product (GDP), and more than 70%of technologyInnovative results, more than 80%of urban labor and employment, the number of enterprises in the private economy accounts for more than 90%.In recent years, under the influence of the Sino -US trade war, the downward pressure on China's economy has increased, and how the healthy development of private enterprises has become more important.

Whether it is China's economic structural reform required by the United States (and West) or the structural reform of China's efforts, private enterprises are the top priority.Because of the weight of the private economy throughout the national economy, the Chinese government has recently spent strongly to optimize the development environment of the private economy.Chinese President ... Hosted a seminar on private entrepreneurs to make talks or speeches on the development of private enterprises.

The State Council has issued many documents to introduce various measures to encourage, support, and guide non -public economic development, including in accordance with the principles of competitive neutrality, in terms of element acquisition, access permission, operation, government procurement, and biddingTreat them equally; build a new type of political and business relationship, improve the communication mechanism of government and enterprises, stimulate the spirit of entrepreneurs, and promote the development and upgrading of the private economy; protect the property rights must be unswerving, punish in infringement according to law, and correct the wrong cases.Essence

However, all these huge efforts are not reflected in the actual living environment faced by private enterprises, or it does not give private enterprises a sense of determination of the future.The pressure faced by private enterprises and entrepreneurs seems to be increasing, not only from the international level (trade war), but also changes in the internal environment (ideology, the retreat of the country, the rule of law, property and life security, etc.).All these make private enterprises face huge uncertainty.This uncertainty is directly manifested in the behavior of private entrepreneurs.

From the perspective of experience, today's international situation is turbulent, China is still the most stable country; although the economy is also facing downward pressure, it still maintains a high level of growth compared to all other countries; and China is becoming the largest internal consumption.market.It stands to reason that private enterprises should focus on the internal development, but in fact, it is not.Many private enterprises not only do not have great willingness to expand their internal investment, but have contracted; some entrepreneurs take the company to the country by taking advantage of the government's PPP reform (public -private partner system) to turn themselves into the country;Many entrepreneurs have do not have enough confidence in internal development, and they fled overseas by everything and did not count about costs.

Why does this happen?From the perspective of appearance, there are many reasons.Many government policies are difficult to implement, and even deformation during the implementation of the policy leads to the opposite effect.For example, competitiveness is just a beautiful policy slogan, which is difficult to execute.PPP reform is also an example.The original intention of this reform is good, to alleviate the financial pressure faced by private enterprises, but the implementation effect is not good.In some cases, this reform has become a means of throwing off its own burdens.Many private enterprises have had difficulties in the development process (such as industrial upgrading). Entrepreneurs are limited by themselves and feel that they have developed to its apex, and they use this opportunity to give the burden to the government.In other cases, this reform has become an effective means for state -owned enterprises (capital) to annex private enterprises.

In China's political environment, it is difficult to say that public and private cooperation is theoretically and practical, because public and private operation logic is different.How can public and private form a partnership?The logic of the public is control, and the logic of private is profitable.The so -called national progress and the retreat often show a phenomenon of hanging.

Judging from the development of state -owned enterprises and private enterprises in some developed provinces (such as Guangdong and Zhejiang), the space occupied by state -owned enterprises is not so large, and private enterprises are still developing, but people still feel the trend of national progress and civil retreatEssenceJudging from some provinces (such as the Northeast) of some original state -owned enterprises, the country has not entered, but the people have not entered.More places have indeed retired as the people, but the country has not entered.

What is China's economic structure?

All these contradictions require people's thinking. If they can't make a logic about these contradictions, it is difficult to formulate practical policies to achieve sustainable economic development.The problem facing China today is that although people have discussed structural reforms for many years, no one knows what China's structure is so far?In other words, what does structural reform mean?Many people are deeply influenced by Western neo -liberal economics. Applying the concepts and theories of the West to understand China's structure according to the definition of Western structure. As a result, many policies issued by governments at all levels do not conform to China's national conditions.In this case, the above -mentioned contradictions are inevitable.

What is China's economic structure?To put it simply, from the Han Dynasty to the contemporary period, except for a few short historical stages (Wang Mang Reform, Wang Anshi Reform, Zhu Yuanzhang Reform and Mao Zedong Reform), China basically showed a three -layer capital structure, that is, the state -owned state -owned state -owned state -ownedThe state -owned capital represented by the enterprise, the private capital of the small and medium -sized enterprises as the underlying, and the middle layer of the interaction of state -owned capital and private capital.As long as these three -layer capital is balanced and balanced, economic development will be stable and sustainable; once these three -layer capital has a serious imbalance, whether it is the absolute advantage of national capital or a large decline in national capital, it will be.Severe economic problems occur.From the three -story capital structure, understanding the dilemma faced by Chinese private enterprises today is not meaningful.

The first layer is state -owned capital.State -owned capital assumes economic responsibilities that private capital cannot bear and cannot bear, including large -scale infrastructure construction investment, investment in some areas of the national economy, crises caused by the economic cycle, and other due to environmental mutations.Crisis, the failure of the economy, and the failure of the market.All these stable economic development of a country are indispensable.

However, several important issues are involved here.The first is the spatial distribution of state -owned enterprises and private enterprises.In addition to the reasonable distribution of a few provinces, most provinces still occupy too much space.Those provinces with more reasonable distribution often show a strong situation of strong people in the country.Most provinces (especially the Northeast) state -owned enterprises still occupy too much and excessive space. Private capital does not have enough space, which is difficult to enter and it is difficult to survive.The country is weak.If state -owned enterprises in these provinces cannot transfer more space for private enterprises, this weak situation will continue.

A more important question is, where is state -owned capital going?It is now proposed the idea of state -owned enterprises' management of capital.The core of this idea is that no matter where state -owned capital goes, as long as capital is appreciated.Under the guidance of this idea, today's state -owned enterprises are like Venture Capitals on Wall Street.It is said that this is a state -owned capital management model for Singapore.Here are both the ingredients of the Singapore model and the components of redness (copying and reflecting).The spirit of the Singapore model is that state -owned enterprises must also be market -oriented, and state -owned enterprises must be profitable; even those state -owned enterprises that undertake social functions such as hydropower and hospitals must introduce market mechanisms to achieve the efficiency of allocation and services.From this perspective, Chinese state -owned enterprises should indeed learn the Singapore model vigorously.

However, Singapore and China are different.Singapore is a city country. There is no need for a complete industrial system. It can grasp several important and high -value links in a industrial system (whether it is domestic or international).China is different. Such a large country requires a large number of complete industrial systems.State -owned capital must consider not only the issue of profit, but also the construction of the industrial system.If the state -owned capital is allowed to play the role of venture capital, tragedy will be inevitable. It will not only weaken the role of industrial construction, but also compete with the people, leading the state -owned and private imbalances, and eventually destroy the entire national economic system.

China needs wrongWestern definition structural reform

On the second floor, the state -owned and private hybrid economy on the middle layer.The problem here is that state -owned enterprises and private enterprises need their own space, or do you cooperate to share space?It is undoubtedly a latter thinking in today's reform policy.It must be pointed out that in modern times, this idea (such as the official supervision office) not only has no good results at all, but also leads to huge corruption.

As the PPP reform discussed above, if it is really implemented, there will be one of the two situations: either a large loss of state -owned assets, or a state -owned enterprise annexing private enterprises.These two situations have actually happened.In some cases, public -private cooperation becomes the privateization of state -owned assets, and in other cases, it is the nationalization of private capital.Today, many officials are advocating that the government will be neutral in the face of state -owned enterprises and private enterprises; in fact, unless it is self -deceiving, the competition is just utopia, and it is not possible to achieve it at all.How can the government be neutral in the competition of state -owned enterprises and private enterprises?This is completely a simple set of Western logic, and does not take into account China's national conditions at all.

If you consider China's national conditions, there will be another reform idea, that is, the cooperation between state -owned enterprises and private enterprises based on labor division of labor.In some areas, such as natural monopoly areas, infrastructure construction, and service areas (medical, education, housing, social security) with strong social functions, and are vital areas of national security and national economy, state -owned enterprises should occupy a dominant position.In those competitive areas and people's livelihood, private enterprises should dominate.After determining these areas (division of labor), multiple or even countless enterprises can be introduced in one field to prevent the emergence of monopoly, promote competition between enterprises, and maintain the openness of the economy.Only when there is competition between state -owned enterprises, and only when competition between private enterprises, the government can talk about neutrality.

The third layer, small and medium -sized enterprises.There are two structural issues here. The first problem is the space problem mentioned above.For most small and medium -sized enterprises, there is still no room for investment.Where does the new space come from?On the one hand, a state -owned enterprise is required to transfer more space for their own inaction and difficulty, and on the other hand, technological innovation is needed.The second problem is the lack of financial institutions serving SMEs.The service target of large state -owned banks in China is a large state -owned enterprise. They do not have any motivation to serve small and medium -sized enterprises.If they are forced to serve small and medium -sized enterprises through administrative or political methods, they are neither in compliance with economic laws nor sustainable.For many years, these banks are only symbolic in serving small and medium -sized enterprises.

The development of small and medium -sized enterprises is therefore required a structural reform of the financial system, that is, small and medium -sized banks intending to serve small and medium -sized enterprises (both state -owned or private).People are only staring at Wall Street in the United States, which is a misunderstanding of the US economy.The global financial crisis in 2008 was triggered by Wall Street, but it was not Wall Street that promoted the recovery of the US economy, but a large number of small and medium -sized banks in the United States, and even community banks.

In China, small and medium -sized enterprises have to shift to informal pipelines (including shadow banks, P2P network lending, underground money, etc.) because they cannot get financial support from formal financial channels.These informal financial institutions are often in an anarchy, and it is easy to cause a huge crisis. The ending is conceivable.If it maintains today's financial structure, the development of small and medium -sized enterprises will become more and more difficult.

Since the start of the trade war, the United States (or the entire West) requires structural reforms on the Chinese economy.China will never be done for Western requirements.For example, how can China have the possibility of all privatization?More importantly, if the structural reforms defined by the West (or Washington consensus mentioned before), the fate of China's economy must be sad.Since the disintegration of Su Dong's planned economy, there have been too many experience evidence to prove this, and China does not need to repeat failure.

The sustainable development of China's economy does require structural reforms, but it is by no means structural reform defined by the West.Now people look at the Chinese problem along the ideas of Western structural reform, which has become a huge obstacle to China's effective economic reform.If this goes on, the reform will eventually evolve into an ideological dispute, and there will be no results; people's expected progress is not only impossible, but there will be huge retrogs.

The structural reform of China's economy, the primary task is to understand what China's economic structure is?What kind of structural reform do I need?In a word, China needs to understand the economist of China.

The author is a professor at the East Asia Research Institute of Singapore's National University

The article only represents personal point of view