This year will become the "turning point" of China's grain production

Introduction: at present, China's macro-control has achieved remarkable results One of the important reasons for this round of macro-control is the continuous rise of prices If the current round of macro-control has been effective in controlling investment inflation, it seems that it has not been successful in controlling price inflation: until August, China's CPI (consumer price index) has been at the level of more than 5% for three consecutive months If prices continue to rise, more stringent macroeconomic tightening policies must be implemented Whether prices will continue to rise depends on whether the factors that drive them will continue to strengthen At present, there are two main driving factors: first, the rise of food prices; second, the rise of imported crude oil prices The situation of grain supply and demand has improved significantly in China Since 2003, the central government has issued a series of measures to support grain production The summer grain harvest has been achieved and the autumn grain harvest is expected There will be a significant improvement in the balance of domestic food supply and demand On the international side, according to the forecast of the international food and Agriculture Organization, this year's global grain production will increase from 1.87 billion tons in the previous food production year to 2.13 billion tons in this production year While the international grain trade volume is generally 10% of the total output, that is to say, the grain trade volume in the international market can increase 26 million tons this year As the global food supply increases, the price of grain in the international market will also fall China's grain import in 2004 is estimated to be about 20 million tons Li Xirong, deputy director of the Rural Department of the Research Office of the State Council, pointed out at the "China food high level Forum (2004)" held recently that the relevant policies of the state to support food production have produced obvious results This year, an important turning point has taken place in the grain production of the whole country Summer grain, early rice and autumn grain have been increased in season, and the total grain output of the whole year will be increased by 50 billion jin over the previous year At the beginning of this year, China set a total grain production target of 4.55 million tons for the whole year The situation shows that these policy measures adopted by the central government have produced obvious results Experts believe that this year will become the "turning point" of China's grain production Since 2003, the most important driving factor of food price increase is the end of the force Grain prices should fall significantly in October after the autumn grain market this year, so there is no basis to predict that prices will continue to rise The oil price will fall at the latest next year In terms of the price of imported crude oil, the price of light crude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange broke through $50 per barrel for the first time on October 1, while the OPEC oil price on September 28 reached the highest price of $43.54 per barrel so far International oil prices have risen by 60% since the beginning of the year and by 120% since the end of 2001 The rise of international oil price has led to the rise of a series of international primary products and raw materials prices, and has become an important reason for the rise of domestic upstream products since last year But first of all, we must see that the current rise of international oil prices is largely driven by speculative factors, because even though the demand for oil imports in China and other countries has increased significantly, the current pattern of international oil supply and demand is actually oversupply According to the data of the international energy administration, the global oil production is 83.6 million barrels per day, while the demand is only 81.5 million barrels, which is 2.6% higher than the demand On September 14, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait decided to increase 800000 barrels of crude oil per day and 200000 barrels of crude oil per day in October, respectively, in order to curb the excessive rise of international oil prices This will further increase the oversupply Moreover, since 2003, the work of increasing oil reserves in developed countries has come to an end, reaching the historical peak of oil reserves respectively So unless there is major international turmoil, such as last year's Iraq war, international oil prices will show a significant downward trend at least next year More attention should be paid to the "deflation" in five years Due to the trend of food prices and oil prices, it is estimated that China's CPI growth should be above 4% this year, and may fall below 3% or even lower next year It should also be noted that China's current price rise has a very obvious structural feature, that is, the closer to the upstream products, the greater the price rise, while the opposite is true for the downstream products For example, excluding food prices, industrial prices rose by only 1% The price of many industrial consumer goods, such as cars and communications products, has not risen this year, but has declined This shows that the rise of industrial prices is more reflected in the redistribution of profits among various industrial sectors and industries Therefore, the whole society adjusts the industrial proportion to adapt to the new round of consumption structure changes driven by cars and houses Therefore, the large increase in the price of upstream industrial products will not significantly transfer to the final product From a deeper point of view, with the deepening of China's marketization, the income distribution gap of Chinese residents began to widen significantly since the second half of the 1990s Some analysis shows that China's Gini coefficient was 0.4 in 1996, and now it has reached 0.47 This means that in the context of widening income gap, the final demand will face a long-term shortage China's "overheated economy" is mainly driven by investment demand Investment is demand at present, and will become supply in the next cycle, which will gradually make the situation of insufficient final demand emerge According to the investment cycle of five years, the obvious oversupply will probably occur before 2008, so from now to the next five years, China's price situation is likely to gradually shift from the current "inflation" to "deflation" This is an issue that needs more attention.