数据表明中国经济明显放缓

    目前，服务业创造的就业机会仍足以抵消制造业裁员的影响，经济滑坡给后者带来的冲击最大。不过，中新社周二报道，中国人力资源和社会保障部部长尹蔚民表示，如果经济继续放缓，要完成政府的就业目标“任务十分艰巨”。

    由于政府日益重视就业水平，这样的表态抬高了外界对更多刺激措施的预期。澳新银行驻香港分析师指出，包括中专、技校和初中高中毕业生在内，今年中国城镇新增劳动力将达到1500万人，进城务工人员的数量也将大幅上升。

    越来越多的国家都已通过放松货币政策来支持经济增长。上周，中国也加入了这一行列。中国央行将存款准备金率下调0.5个百分点至19.5%，从而为银行提供了6000亿元人民币（约合960亿美元）可用资金。该行还在三个月内两次下调基准利率，只是受中国的金融市场监管方式影响，基准利率在中国的作用和发达国家不完全一样。

    For the moment, the services sector is still creating more than enough jobs to offset labor-shedding in a manufacturing sector that is bearing the brunt of the slowdown. However, the newspaper China News Tuesday quoted China’s Minister of Human Resources and Social Security Yin Weimin as saying that the government’s employment goals will be “difficult to achieve” if the slowdown continues.

    Such comments have raised the expectation of more stimulus, due to Beijing’s increasing focus on employment levels. Analysts at ANZ bank in Hong Kong note that around 15 million students will graduate from vocation, technical or middle schools this year, with many more migrating from rural areas to cities in search of work.

    Last week, China joined the swelling ranks of those countries that have relaxed monetary policy to support growth. The central bank cut its reserve requirement ratio for large banks by 0.50 percent to 19.5%, freeing up some 600 billion yuan ($96 billion) for the banks to deploy. It has also cut official interest rates twice in three months, although official rates don’t have quite the same impact in China as they do in developed markets, owing to the way financial markets are regulated.

    这些措施是否足以保持经济稳步发展，那是另一个问题。房地产市场的巨大泡沫继续缩小（住宅成交量同比下降了16%），而中国政府可能需要大力干预，以免大批违约事件产生破坏性影响。

    此外，通缩风险似乎正在上升，而不是下降。国家统计局周一公布，今年2月份，工业生产者出厂价格同比下降4.8%，这是2009年以来的最大跌幅。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    审校: Lina

    Whether all that will be enough to keep the economy on an even keel is another question. A massive bubble in property development is still deflating (housing sales were down 16% year-on-year), and drastic intervention from Beijing may be needed to prevent a wage of damaging defaults.

    Moreover, the risk of deflation appears to be increasing rather than decreasing. Producer prices fell by 4.8% in the year through February, the NBS reported Monday, the biggest drop since 2009.