Probably not big enough to offset the drag from the old
Photograph: Xinhua/ eyevine
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I N ECONOMICS, SIZE matters. Since 2021 Xi Jinping has steered China’s economy away from a preoccupation with property (building it, selling it and furnishing it) towards high-tech manufacturing and other “new productive forces”, as the paramount leader calls them. But are the new forces big enough to fill the gap left by the old?
Economists have tried to find out. Their task is not easy, thanks to ambiguities about which industries to include, how to measure their contribution and how to fill gaps in the data. One recent attempt by Rhodium Group, a consultancy, drew on a table published by China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in November detailing the links between industries in 2023. The table’s granularity makes it one of the first data sets that can shed light on “whether Beijing’s bet on new growth drivers is likely to pay off”, the authors note.
Chart: The Economist
In 2023 China’s GDP was about 130trn yuan ($18trn at the time). This was split between consumer items, exports and capital goods, which are all examples of “final” goods and services, as opposed to parts, materials and other “intermediate” goods. Only 1.44trn yuan, 1.1% of the total, was spent on new-energy vehicles (NEV s), the poster child for China’s industrial success. Property-related demand (for homebuilding and real-estate services) accounted for over 16% of GDP —despite China being two years into a property crisis.
Electric-car making is, of course, not China’s only vanguard industry. People often talk of the “new three”, which also includes batteries and renewable energy. Adding these together would provide a more comprehensive measure of China’s emerging growth engines. This is where the difficulties start. Batteries, for example, are rarely a “final” good. They typically appear embedded in other products—including electric cars. Some of the 1.44trn yuan spent on NEV s, therefore, already reflects the value of the batteries inside them. Simply lumping batteries and NEV s together risks double counting.
In its measure of the new three, Rhodium Group takes care to count batteries only once. It also adds a separate measure of investment in the new industries. They are growing so fast, points out Endeavour Tian of Rhodium Group, that investment in fresh capacity can outpace current output. This investment has to be measured separately because the NBS table does not always attribute it to the three new industries. If someone builds a car or battery factory, Ms Tian notes, it is typically counted as demand for construction or machinery, not cars or batteries.
All told, Rhodium Group estimates that the new three accounted for only 3.8% of GDP in 2023. Adding the construction of new electricity infrastructure and some proxies for robotics, software and artificial-intelligence investment brings the total to 5.5% in 2023 and 6.3% in 2025.
A different attempt to measure China’s new economy was published last year by Goldman Sachs. The bank looked beyond the new three to high-tech manufacturing overall, including electronics, ship-, plane- and trainmaking, medical products and other equipment, instruments and meters. This broader set amounts to about 8% of GDP —still smaller than property. It is also less labour-intensive. The bank once calculated that 1trn yuan spent on NEV s creates 2.8m jobs, whereas the the same sum spent on residential construction generates 3.7m.
The speed of a sector’s growth matters, too. If a small industry grows twice as fast as another that is twice as big, it can make the same contribution to growth. Although high-tech manufacturing is smaller than property, it is growing fast even as property shrinks. By next year it will add more to growth than property subtracts, according to Goldman Sachs, even counting the fiscal spillovers from property’s decline and the drag on consumption when people do not buy new homes to furnish.
-1 + 1 ≠ 5%
If high-tech manufacturing merely offsets property’s drag on growth, it will stop GDP shrinking but it will not be enough to increase it by Mr Xi’s goal of 4.5-5% a year. He has been urging entrepreneurs and local governments to think more imaginatively about new productive forces, including in old industries.
The application of new ideas in existing businesses is part of the NBS ’s own definition of the “new three”—not EV s, batteries and solar panels, but “new industries, new formats and new business models”. This can span everything from drip irrigation to fire alarms. NBS calculations find these industries, formats and models already account for 18% of GDP, exceeding property’s share. “In a broad sense, the new economy now fully counterbalances property’s drag,” concludes Citigroup, another bank. If new productive forces are to meet China’s official growth goals, they must be felt beyond the industries that hog the headlines. In economics, size is not all that matters. Scope counts for something, too.■
논증 분석
유형: diagnostic
핵심 주장
China의 신흥 산업(신생산력)은 부동산 침체로 인한 성장 손실을 상쇄하기에 아직 충분히 크지 않으며, 성장 목표를 달성하려면 규모뿐 아니라 범위의 확장이 필요하다.
논리구조
- 전제: Xi Jinping은 2021년 이후 부동산 중심 경제에서 고기술 제조업 등 ‘신생산력’으로 경제 방향을 전환하고 있으나, 새로운 산업이 구산업의 공백을 메울 만큼 충분히 큰지가 핵심 질문이다.
- 진단: 2023년 기준 China의 GDP에서 신에너지차(NEV)는 1.1%에 불과한 반면, 부동산 관련 수요는 이미 위기 2년차임에도 불구하고 GDP의 16% 이상을 차지하고 있다.
- 진단: Rhodium Group의 분석에 따르면, ‘신3종(NEV·배터리·재생에너지)‘은 이중 계산을 조정하고 신규 설비투자를 별도 포함해도 2023년 GDP의 3.8%에 그치며, 로봇·소프트웨어·AI 투자를 합산해도 2025년 기준 6.3%에 불과하다.
- 진단: Goldman Sachs의 더 넓은 정의(전자, 조선, 항공, 의료기기 등 고기술 제조업 전반)를 적용해도 GDP의 약 8%로, 부동산 규모에 미치지 못하며 고용 창출 효과도 주거용 건설보다 열위에 있다.
- 논거: Goldman Sachs에 따르면 고기술 제조업은 빠른 성장세 덕분에 내년에는 부동산 감소분을 성장 기여 측면에서 상쇄할 수 있지만, 이는 GDP 감소를 막는 것일 뿐 Xi Jinping의 연 4.5~5% 성장 목표를 달성하기에는 부족하다.
- 반론: NBS(National Bureau of Statistics)의 ‘신3종’ 정의를 ‘신산업·신업태·신비즈니스모델’로 넓게 해석하면 GDP의 18%에 달해 부동산 비중을 초과하며, Citigroup은 이 기준에서 ‘신경제가 부동산 침체를 완전히 상쇄한다’고 결론짓는다.
- 결론: 헤드라인을 장식하는 특정 산업의 규모만으로는 성장 목표 달성이 어려우며, 기존 산업 전반에 걸친 신기술·신모델의 확산이라는 ‘범위’가 함께 확장되어야 한다.
결론
China의 신흥 산업은 부동산 침체를 간신히 상쇄하는 수준에 그치므로, Xi Jinping의 성장 목표를 실현하려면 선도 산업의 규모 성장을 넘어 경제 전반으로의 신생산력 확산이 필수적이다.
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