Chapter 76 "Troika" in 1998

In March 1998, Zhu Rongji was elected as the new Premier of the State Council.At the press conference of the "Two Sessions" of the country, he made an impromptu and generous speech, declaring: "Whether there is a minefield or an abyss in front of me, I will go forward without hesitation, do my best, and die." It was also in this year that, He created the "troika" for the future Chinese economy. Beginning in the summer of 1997, American hedge funds attacked the currencies of Asian countries, detonating the "Asian Financial Crisis". The capital markets of Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and South Korea fell one after another, and the property of the middle class in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia shrank by 50% respectively. , 61% and 37%, while the assets of residents in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand fell by 44%, 43% and 41%.The financial turmoil ravaging neighboring countries and regions will naturally affect China's industrial economy and people's mentality. The stock market is in a downturn, and the consumer market is even more depressed. By the middle of 1997, the total value of the country's industrial inventory products exceeded 3 trillion yuan. There is a phenomenon of "structural excess".Zhu Rongji once admitted at the meeting that the supply of 95% of industrial products exceeds demand, "there are too many things, but there are not too many".Even more worrying is the fact that a record 12.75 million workers were laid off from state-owned enterprises at the time, and only a handful of them found new jobs. In June 1998, the Yangtze River Basin was hit by a once-in-a-century flood, which affected 29 provinces and cities, killing thousands of people and causing huge economic losses.Under the double pressure of the financial crisis and natural disasters, China experienced another Great Depression since 1988.

It was at this moment when "if you are not careful, you may fall into the abyss", Zhu Rongji used the three major economic policies to pull the Chinese economy out of the quagmire. First, start urbanization construction.Zhu Rongji announced the implementation of "active fiscal policy". From 1998 to 2001, the government issued 510 billion yuan of long-term construction treasury bonds, and major state-owned commercial banks issued the same amount of "supporting funds", mainly for investment in infrastructure construction, such as the construction of highways. Roads, railways and large water conservancy projects, etc. At the same time, the central bank has lowered deposit and loan interest rates seven times, increasing the money supply.

Second, open the import and export autonomy of foreign trade.The State Council successively issued policies to allow private enterprises to export on their own, which greatly stimulated the enthusiasm for foreign trade.After the Asian financial crisis, the economic vitality of the four Asian tigers was severely damaged. Relatively speaking, the Chinese economy, which was not hit hard, had the effect of "discovering the truth". Prosperity. Finally, stimulate domestic demand and open up the real estate market. In July 1998, the State Council made a major decision that all party and government agencies stopped the practice of distributing welfare housing in kind for more than 40 years, and promoted the monetization of housing distribution.Almost at the same time, the People's Bank of China promulgated the "Personal Housing Loan Management Measures", allowing commercial banks to provide housing mortgage loan services.These two measures have directly stimulated the recovery of the real estate industry.

These three major policies focus on investment, export and domestic demand respectively, thus forming the "troika" to stimulate economic recovery.In 1998, when there were many devastation, China's economy took the lead in bottoming out and rebounding.As is often the case in global economic history, a major economic crisis is often accompanied by an economically powerful country. In the crisis-ridden Asian financial turmoil, China was fortunate to play such a role. In one fell swoop, it replaced Japan as the locomotive of the Asian economy.