India's new government
印度新政府
Kick-starting India
一剂强心剂
India's new government must get the economy working again. Here's how
印度新政府必须让国家经济回归正轨，来看看需要怎么做。
INDIA'S mammoth, five-week election, involving hundreds of millions of voters, is over. Official results were due as The Economist went to press. A new government will be formed in the coming days. Exit polls point to the Bharatiya Janata Party swooping back to power after a decade in opposition. Narendra Modi, its leader, is set to be prime minister. Investors are excited by that prospect. They like his past in running the business-friendly state of Gujarat and his talk of vikas in the campaign.
印度为期五周，超过百万人参与投票的国家大选终于落下帷幕。本期经济学人杂志出版正值官方结果出炉。在未来的日子里，印度将组建新的政府。出口民调显示，印度人民党在野十年后将重掌政权，人民党领袖纳伦德拉·莫迪将任总理。投资人深受这一消息的鼓舞。莫迪过去在管理古吉拉特邦时实行的商业友好策略以及在大选进程中发表的关于维卡斯公司发展的言论都受到投资人的欢迎。
Whoever becomes prime minister faces a long to-do list that includes everything from getting along with Pakistan to dealing with iron-ore mafias. But the priority must be repairing what by some measures is the world's third-largest economy. This is the key to lifting hundreds of millions of people from poverty and creating jobs for India's young and hungry population. It is a huge task.
无论谁当选总理，都面临着一长串的任务清单，这个清单包罗万象，从与巴基斯坦重修旧好到处理操纵铁矿石交易的黑手党。然而首要任务一定是修整这个从某种标准上算是世界第三大经济体的国家，这是解救数以亿计的贫困人口为青年和饥饿人群创造就业岗位的关键。这个任务无比艰巨。
A lost half-decade
失落的五年
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A decade ago India's economy was winning new-found respect as a riot of energy and enterprise, but its performance in recent years has been dismal. Now foreign bosses roll their eyes when you mention India, as they did in the 1980s. Growth has fallen to 5%, half the level at the peak of the 2004-08 boom. Inflation and public borrowing are too high. The rupee slumped in 2013. Private firms are fed up with red tape and graft and have cut investment from a peak of 17% of GDP to 9%. On some measures the country is going backwards in time. Households have been shifting savings away from banks into the ancient refuge of gold. In a country that should be industrialising, the contribution to GDP from industry has been declining while manufacturing jobs have stagnated.
十年前，依附于能源和企业的迅猛发展，印度经济赢得了世界上新鲜目光的瞩目，然而近年来表现却越发不堪。现在，提到印度时，外商会像上世纪八十年代一样翻起白眼。印度的增长率下滑到5%，是它2004-08巅峰时期的一半。通货膨胀和公开借贷双双过高，2013年，卢比遭到严重贬值。私营企业对政府的繁文缛节和贪污受贿厌倦透顶，表现在投资上就是投资额在GDP中占比从17%的高峰下滑到9%。从某些方面来说，印度已经在走下坡路。家家户户都急于从银行提现并把存款转换为古老的黄金以寻求避难。作为一个工业化国家，印度工业对GDP的贡献率已经开始下滑，制造业的就业也陷于停滞。
The last government dithered and was preoccupied with bolstering India's welfare state. India's new rulers must be more strategic and ruthless. Their task has three parts.
上一届政府犹犹豫豫，一心想着把印度变为一个福利国家。新一届政策制定者应当表现的更有战略性和大胆无情。他们的任务有三方面。
First, they must tackle India's rotten banks. That might sound like a technical quibble—it is anything but. Bad debts have soared as the economy has slowed and infrastructure projects have got snared by red tape. Banks have chosen to “extend and pretend” loans to zombie firms. The cost of cleaning up banks' balance sheets could be as high as 4% of GDP—slightly larger, in relative terms, than Wall Street's bail out. But until the banks are fit enough to finance a new cycle of investment, no recovery will happen. Deeper financial reform is vital, too. Banks are forced to buy government bonds, giving politicians a blank cheque to borrow. Limiting that would help end the habit of reckless public deficits.
首先需要处理的是的腐朽的银行业。这听起来可能像诡辩，但事实确是如此。经济下滑和基建项目被红头文件搁置导致了坏账的猛增，而银行却假装继续给“僵尸企业”提供贷款。清理银行资产负债表的成本可能达到GDP的4%，比起华尔街的保释要相对多一些。但是，复苏必须等到银行能够进行新一轮的投融资才有可能发生。深入的金融改革也是十分必要的。现在的银行被迫购买国债，这样政客就能够借到空头支票，而限制这个过程能够帮助政府终结轻率产生的赤字。
Second, a destabilising cycle of stagflation must be broken. High public borrowing has fuelled inflation, which stands at 9%. To protect their savings, households have bought gold from abroad, blowing a hole in the balance of payments. The new government must cut wasteful spending on subsidies of food and fuel. But the main reason why India has not run a budget surplus since independence in 1947 is that its tax base is puny. So the government must bring more of the economy into the tax net in order to repair the public finances.
第二点，必须打破不稳定的滞涨循环。高公债刺激了通货膨胀，当前已经达到9%。家庭为了保护存款从国外购买黄金，这样就在收支平衡表上留下了一个漏洞。新政府必须削减不必要的食品和燃料补贴。但是印度自1947年独立以来就没有过预算盈余的主要原因在它薄弱的课税基础。因此，政府应当将更多的经济活动纳入税网来恢复公共财政。
Slaying stagflation also requires tough action from the central bank. Its chief, Raghuram Rajan, wants an inflation targeting regime. The government should back him and try to persuade him to stay in the job. To cut high food prices, it should abolish the state-run agricultural markets that are often in the hands of powerful locals who hoard farmers' produce.
遏制滞涨还需要央行采取强硬行动。央行行长拉加恩希望有一个针对通货膨胀的机制，政府应当给予支持并把他稳定在行长的位子上。考虑到国营农产品市场通常都被从农民手中积聚农产品的有财力的当地人操控，政府应当废除这一市场来降低过高的食品价格。
India's not working
印度的不作为
Creating more decent jobs is the new government's third and most important task. Over the past half century most East Asian countries have prospered by employing unskilled farmworkers in factories. India should be doing that right now. Over 10m people a year will enter the workforce for the next decade. Labour costs are rising in China, leading firms to shift production elsewhere. Japanese companies are scrambling to diversify away from China as military tensions crackle. The rupee has fallen by a third against the yuan since 2010, making India's workers more competitive.
新政府第三个也是最重要的任务是制造更多体面的就业岗位。过去的半个世纪以来多数东亚国家都是通过在工厂里雇佣无需技能的农场工人来致富，印度也应当这么做。接下来的十年里会有超过千万人加入劳动力大军。中国的劳动力成本的升高导致企业纷纷另觅厂房；随着军事紧张的局势破表，日本企业争相逃离中国；2010年以来，卢比兑人民币已经贬值了三分之一，这种情况下印度的劳动力将更有竞争力。
So far India has blown it. For firms wanting to invest, access to the ingredients of production—energy, labour and land—is uncertain and expensive. The taxation of foreign companies is a lottery. As a result, firms such as Li & Fung, which sources textiles and toys for America's supermarkets, say that factories are shifting to Bangladesh, South-East Asia and Africa, not India.
然而到目前为止，印度都搞砸了。对于想投资的企业来说，包括能源、劳力和土地在内的产品原料都太贵和太不确定。加上对外资公司的课税模式捉摸不定，造成的结果就是，像利丰集团这样为美国超市提供纺织品和玩具外包的企业把工厂转移到了孟加拉、东南亚和非洲，而不是印度。
If India is to be in the running as a manufacturing centre, the new government must restore the country's reputation as a place to do business. In some areas less government is needed: archaic labour laws should be abolished. In others a stronger state is required to supply reliable electricity or enforce contracts to let firms buy land. Through both, there needs to be a big drive to create clusters of manufacturing.
如果印度真想做制造中心，新政府就一定要重新建立起该国是个做生意的好地方的名声。在某些领域上，政府可以减少参与，比如陈旧的劳动法应当被废除。在其他领域里，政府需要扮演强大的角色，提供可靠的电力并巩固合约，以此鼓励企业买地。双管齐下的同时还需要有强劲的驱动力来牵引出一个个制造业集群。
India can go in one of two directions. It can watch its position in the world decline as its infrastructure lags further behind and its army of underemployed people grows. Or it can stabilise its finances and build a productive private sector that creates the jobs its young people need and turns it into a serious global power. The choice is the new government's.
印度有两条路可走。它可以忍受基础设施远远落后、失业人群不断增长，并亲眼目睹自身的世界地位渐渐没落，或者它可以稳定财政并建造一个富有成效的私营部门来为年轻人创造就业岗位，从而变成一个正经的全球性大国。选择权在新政府。 |