国仍在推进西部大开发。不要误认为这是一个主要的新刺激 政策。
继2008年末中国宣布了高达5,860亿美元的开支计划之后，上周，中国宣布其西部地区今年将获得1,010亿美元的投资。这让 部分人士猜想中国是否又开始了新的财政刺激政策。这未免期望过高。
首先，这1,010亿美元将用于机场和电厂等23个项目，其中有多少是 新开支还不得而知。正如咨询机构Capital Economics指出，许多项目可能只是旧事重提，它们已经包含在中国之前的刺激计划之中。
其 次，西部投资策略是中国政府自本世纪初开始推行的长期计划。2000年到2009年，作为西部大开发战略的一部分，政府宣布了约价值3,250亿美元的西 部投资项目，最新宣布的计划当属此列，而不是中国推出新刺激计划的证据，即使今年的支出是近10年间最高的一年。
无论如何，政府很可能在近几个月中披露更多的“新”投资，引发人们对第二轮财政刺激计划的讨论。从一个方面来说，宣 布此类计划是无法避免的：2009-10年间开始的大量项目需要继续投资才能完工。
更重要的是，尽管决策者努力提高家庭消费在中国经济数 据中的比重，但政府投资在一段时间内仍将是一个主要因素。瑞银(UBS)经济学家汪涛(Tao Wang)指出，如果中国政府在近期内大幅减少投资性支出，基础设施投资将崩溃，整体经济增长可能大幅下滑。
在中国，更多的投资性支出既 必不可少又无法避免，但决不是新鲜事。
China's push westward continues. Just don't confuse it with a major new stimulus effort.
Beijing this week announced the country's western region would see $101 billion of investment this year. That has some wondering if China's starting up a new fiscal stimulus, to follow the $586 billion spending plan announced in late 2008. That's inflating expectations too far.
For a start, it's not clear how much of the $101 billion -- to be spent on 23 projects from airports to power plants -- represents fresh spending. As Capital Economics points out, much of this could simply be a rehash of projects that were included in China's previous stimulus plan.
Moreover, investing in China's western region has been a long-term government project dating from the beginning of this century. From 2000 to 2009 the government announced some $325 billion's worth of new investment projects in the west of China as part of a strategy to develop the region. The latest announcement should be seen in that context, rather than evidence China is gearing up for a new stimulus plan, even if this year's spending is the highest in one year in the last decade.
Nonetheless, it's likely there will be more government unveiling of 'new' investment in the coming months, triggering talk of a second fiscal stimulus. Such announcements are inevitable in one sense: Plenty of projects begun in the 2009-10 period will need ongoing funds to bring them to completion.
More importantly, despite policy maker efforts to raise the share of household consumption in China's economic mix, government investment is going to remain a key element for some time yet. As UBS economist Tao Wang points out, if China's government pulled back on investment spending in the near future, 'infrastructure investment would collapse and overall economic growth could drop sharply.'
Further investment spending in China is both a necessity and an inevitability, not a novelty.