Inflation fight must come first

By Ma Jun

China Daily, February 10, 2011

First of all, inflation per se spurs expectations of further inflation, which in turn aggravates inflation. For instance, despite the second round of real estate regulations to curb mortgage loans and adjust mortgage rates, house sales settled in full continue to surge, because taking inflation expectations into account, many residents are rushing to buy houses in case prices go even higher. What's more, inflation has already raised the cost of living.

With no immediate measures taken to address inflation, the increasingly high inflation will drive macro policies into a tight corner and trigger an economic slump. Even worse, inflation will further widen the wealth disparity and thus affect social stability.

To address the inflation problem, China has to locate the root cause. The current inflation problem results from the excessively loose monetary policy. Anti-inflation requires a tighter monetary policy and a slow down in economic growth.

Nevertheless, according to media reports, the growth target for China's broad money supply (M2) in 2011 is around 16 percent, and uncertainty still remains over loan growth, which is probably set around 16 percent and will finally turn out to be 17 percent or above. Such a monetary policy is still loose.

If China kept M2 growth below 15 percent and capped new local-currency loans at about 6.5 trillion yuan ($986 billion), then the country's GDP growth this year would be 8.5 percent. Given the current situation, this is an ideal policy combination, conducive to sustainable economic development and economic restructuring.

In a bid to tighten monetary policies, China will have to raise interest rates on a comparatively frequent basis.

This is because negative interest rates have already fueled high inflation expectations and thus stirred up hoarding, profiteering and real estate bubbles.

The low interest rates combined with the loose monetary policies in recent years also account for the real estate bubble in some major cities. If China clings to a loose monetary policy to boost economic growth, negative interest rates will continue to plague the country's economy and while the soaring house price, thanks to the third or even fourth round of real estate regulations, will hopefully be depressed, it will simply be on a temporary basis.

In fact, with the current macro control and policies, house prices can hardly decline. Administrative measures will help restrain speculation, but real demand will grow because of high inflation expectations and negative interest rates.

This is because, as was mentioned above, residents assume that house prices will rise.

Due to the negative actual interest rate, many of those who were planning to buy a house in the next few years have decided to bring their schedule forward. For these homebuyers, it is a case of buy now or buy later at a higher price. No wonder demand is on the rise and beyond administrative control.

The author is chief economist of Greater China, Deutsche Bank.