China announced today its annual growth rate slipped to 7.4% in 2014, the lowest figure in 24 years and the first time the country has missed its yearly growth rate target since 1998.

    A slowdown was not unexpected. Lower investment in fixed assets, a property downturn and tighter control over local governments’ spending all contributed to lower growth.

    “It missed the target by a touch, but the number is still quite good,” says Li-Gang Liu

    For the past couple of months, China’s state-run press has been relentlessly running stories about China’s “new normal” and telegraphing the government’s likely reduction in the 2015 GDP target to 7% growth. “The country’s period of miraculous break-neck growth is over, but let’ s get over it,” state-run Xinhua wrote today.

    Even in the beginning of 2014, China was downplaying its growth potential. Only a day after Premier Li Keqiang announced China’s growth target of 7.5% earlier last year, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei undercut him and said 7.2% growth would be just fine.

    Nomura analysts led by Chang Chun Hua in Hong Kong spell out the likely scenario by which China’s growth continues slowing. It shouldn’t be completely unwelcome.

    “The economy will resume its downtrend … given deep-rooted domestic challenges such as tighter controls over local government debt, the property market correction and deleveraging,” Hua writes. “For 2015, we maintain our GDP growth forecast of 6.8%.”

    China’s announced reforms for state-run enterprises, shadow banking, and local government debt should reduce growth but contribute to a healthier economy which is struggling under a public-debt-to-GDP ratio of 250%.

    ANZ’s Liu says China’s service sector’s performance in 2014 is an important takeaway from the GDP announcements. The contribution from services to GDP growth was 3.8 percentage points vs. manufacturing’s 3 percentage points. He says, “This also explains, despite China’s slowing growth over the past four years, the new jobs created are growing year by year.” Services employ more people than do automated factories.

    It also explains why a growth rate that is still by far the fastest of any large economy in the world isn’t translating one-for-one into consumption of commodities such as oil, iron ore and copper, prices for which have tumbled in the last six months as markets wake up to how much they have overestimated the profile of Chinese demand growth.

    Today’s GDP growth slowdown was just as apparent in the third quarter, when China’s quarterly growth hit a five-year low. Back then Chinese stocks fell on the news. In a hint that investors may be getting used to a slowing China, stocks in Shanghai rose by 2% today.

    过去几个月，中国官方媒体一直大肆报道中国的“新常态”，并透露政府可能将2015年的GDP增长目标定为7％。新华社20日撰文称：“中国的超高速增长期已经过去，我们得接受这一点。”

    早在2014年伊始，中国就在淡化自身增长潜力。2014年早些时候，李克强总理宣布，中国经济增长目标为7.5％，仅一天后，财政部长楼继伟就表示，增长7.2％就很好了。

    以花长春为首的野村证券香港分析师团队，详细说明了中国经济增长继续放缓可能会带来的局面。可以说是“塞翁失马，焉知非福”。

    花长春写道：“鉴于地方政府债务控制收紧、房地产市场调整以及去杠杆化等深层次的国内挑战……，经济将持续下滑。对于2015年，我们维持GDP增长6.8％的预测。”

    中国宣布的国有企业、影子银行以及地方政府债务等多项改革，会导致增长放缓，但它们有助于经济健康发展。目前，中国公共债务占GDP的比重高达250％，已令国民经济几乎难以支撑。

    澳新银行的刘利刚表示，中国服务业在2014年的表现，是此次公布的GDP数据中的一大亮点。服务业对GDP增长的贡献率为3.8个百分点，而制造业的贡献率为3个百分点。刘利刚称：“过去四年，尽管中国经济增长放缓，但新增就业岗位数量却在逐年增长，原因便在于服务业的发展。”相比自动化的工厂，服务业雇佣的人更多。

    同时，尽管中国经济增长速度在全球各大经济体中仍然遥遥领先，但其对石油、铁矿石和铜等大宗商品的消耗量却未同比例增长，出现这一现象的原因亦是因为服务业。随着市场意识到中国对大宗商品的需求增长被严重高估，过去半年，上述商品的价格直线下跌。

    如今的GDP增长放缓，同去年三季度时一样明显。当时，中国季度经济增长创下5年来的新低，消息一出，中国股市应声下跌。然而，同样是面对经济增长放缓的消息，本月20日中国股市反而上涨了2％，这暗示投资者或许已经习惯中国经济增长放缓。（财富中文网）

    译者：Hunter

    审稿：李翔