3月26日，在亚洲青年领袖论坛金融与投资主题论坛上，成为资本董事长、观察者网董事长李世默发表主旨演讲。
全文如下：
大家早上好！我今天的发言题目是“中国新经济的续集”。我讲的新经济是广义的新经济，不只是互联网，而是中国这几十年发展的经济方向。
如果你看2023年，现在谈中国经济，全球的媒体报道，包括投资行业，都普遍非常悲观。我最近几个月也去了好几个关于中国经济的论坛，去了新加坡等国，普遍到处一片哀嚎，就我一个人说中国经济还可以，大家都很悲观。悲观在哪里？首先，主要的论调：中国经济陷入困境；房地产暴雷；大的互联网科技公司被整治了，上不了市；国家来接管市场了，民营资本要被掐死了，资本外逃；当然还有去年下半年疫情封城造成的影响，延伸到中国整体，说中国也陷入了困境，也有很多麻烦：政治向左转，权力太集中，中国和西方、美国斗争越来越激烈，经济脱钩、供应链脱钩对中国都造成非常大的负面影响。我们过不了这个坎。还有很多人说要发生战争。这些都是全球媒体领域、金融领域的传言、谣言。
那么，我们回顾一下中国的新经济，为什么会有这么多的传言？我觉得我们中国新经济正在转型期，正在一个转折点上，所以会有这么多不同的说法。从2000年到2020年，这二十年发生了什么？我们2000年加入世贸组织，这20年对中国来说是一个时间段。有几块对中国经济比较重要的。
第一，消费互联网的崛起。这个我们大家都知道的，是中国新经济最大的动力之一。我们成为了全世界最大的消费互联网市场，也培育了全世界最大的消费互联网平台企业。美国有什么，我们也有什么，跟它不相上下。
第二，我们成了全球的产能大国和全球的供应链大国。中国的工业产能现在已经占到全球的30%，接近天花板了，巨大无比。我们也成为了全球最大的贸易国，也是人类历史上最大的贸易国。所以，在全球供应链，我们扮演最大的角色。
第三，基础设施的建设。这20年，有了巨大的成就，比如高铁、公路、制造业零部件，还有新能源、新材料，包括5G，这些都是20年发生的大的经济成就。
但是，这20年的经济成就也有很多问题。举几个例子，一个是互联网平台，消费平台这个行业是赢者通吃的商业模式、赢者通吃的行业。里面的这些商业模式是垄断性的商业模式，金融资本驱动的垄断性商业模式。什么意思呢？就是说，一家互联网公司，因为它的商业模式是赢者通吃，所以它对未来的预期就是未来会成为一个垄断公司。成为垄断公司，回报就很大。把未来的回报推算到今天，成为一个净现值，在这个净现值基础上再去融资。拿到资本，再去投巨大的获客成本，赔钱、烧钱，烧钱到最后，最后赢的那一家就成为垄断了。但是，这些公司，我们现在天天看到的互联网公司、消费平台公司，它的科技创新程度是很低的，非常低，绝大部分是商业模式创新。比如我们天天用的二维码，这东西几十年前就发明了，不是什么新东西，只是商业模式创新，但科技创新的程度很低。这些模式导致什么问题呢？第一当然就是垄断，中国互联网公司垄断是上下游垄断，从上游垄断、下游垄断到客户垄断，垄断，对科技的投入就很低，比如芯片，我们是很落后的，现在被卡脖子；造成财富的高度集中，不平等——收入不平等；对生态的破坏。
今后20年的机会在哪里？我们要从经济的三大支柱，一个是低端制造业，第二是消费互联网，第三是房地产，转向技术赋能产能，真正的科技是提高产能和供应链质量、附加值的科技、新能源、新材料、医疗。右边的图是经济学家说的微笑曲线。微笑曲线说的是什么呢？就是我们中国体量增大很多，但是附加值仍然在下面，跟美国相比。我们现在要做的就是把体量往左上，你们的右上方动。提高体量，也提高质量，这个就是我们讲的高质量发展。
我们中国的产能巨大无比，比美国、日本、德国加一起还要大，每年有5～10万亿美元，比大多数国家都要大，但是这些产能的附加值还是偏低的，好比毛利率是偏低的，大概10%~15%。美国在制造业顶峰时期70年代的时候毛利率应该到了30%～40%，这20%～30%在5～10万亿美元分母上是巨大无比的价值创造。
这个就是中国新经济今后20年的发展方向和投资机遇。谢谢大家！
Eric Li talks about the sequel of Chinese new economy
On 26 March, Eric Li, chairperson of Chengwei Capital and chairperson of Guancha.cn, delivered a keynote speech at the Finance and Investment Forum of the Asia Youth Leaders Forum. Following is the full text of the speech.
Good morning, everyone. My speech today is titled “Chinese New Economy: The Sequel”. The new economy mentioned here is new economy in a broad sense. It is not only about the internet, but also China’s economic direction of the next decade or two.
Speaking of China’s economy in 2023, this year, there is universal pessimism from global media reports to the investment industry. In recent months, I’ve been to several forums on China’s economy, such as one in Singapore, where there was widespread wailing. I alone held that China’s economy was fine. Everyone else was pessimistic. Why so pessimistic? Their main argument was that China’s economy is in trouble, because the real estate has failed, and because big techs have been cracked down on. We all know these stories. That they couldn’t be listed. That China was taking over the market. That private capital was about to be strangled. That Capital fled. That COVID lockdown in the second half of last year took a toll.
And that by extension, China as a whole was in a difficult situation and met many troubles. That the shift of politics to the left, concentration of power, increasingly fierce conflicts with the West and the US, economic decoupling, and supply chain decoupling all had heavily negative effect on China. That we couldn’t get through this. Still many people said there was going to be a war. These are all rumors in global media and finance.
Well, let’s look back at the Chinese new economy and figure out why there are so many rumors. I think because the Chinese new economy is in transition and at a turning point, there are so many different opinions. What happened in the 20 years from 2000 to 2020? We joined the WTO in 2000, so these 20 years is a period for China. There were several milestones in the Chinese economy.
The first is the rise of the consumer internet. This is one of the biggest driving forces behind the Chinese new economy. We have become the world’s largest consumer internet market and incubated the world’s largest consumer Internet platform enterprise. We have everything that the US has, and we are even on par with it. Secondly, we have become a global industrial capacity powerhouse and a global supply chain powerhouse. China’s industrial capacity has now accounted for 30% of the world’s total, approaching the ceiling, and is immensely huge. We have also become the world’s largest trader, the largest of all time. So, in the global supply chain, we play the biggest role. Thirdly, infrastructure has seen huge development in the past 20 years, such as high-speed rails, highways, manufacturing components, new energy and materials, and 5G. These are all major economic achievements of the past 20 years.
But there are also many problems underneath these economic achievements. What are these problems? Let me start with a few examples. First, the consumer internet platform industry mentioned earlier is a winner-take-all business model and industry. This business model is monopolistic, driven by financial capital. What does it mean? That is to say, under this winner-take-all model, an internet company will set its eyes for the future to become a monopoly. After becoming a monopoly, its returns will be huge. Considering these returns and the current situation, it will come up with its net present value (NPV), and seeks funding based on this NPV. It will then use the funds for the huge customer acquisition costs. It keeps spending and burning money until it wins and becomes a monopoly.
But these companies, these internet companies and consumer platform companies we see daily, their degree of technological innovation is extremely low. Most of them made business model innovations. For example, the QR code we use every day was invented decades ago. It is not something new. Their business model is innovative, but their level of technological innovation is low. What problems does this model cause? The first is certainly monopoly. Our Chinese internet companies monopolize the whole value chain from upstream to downstream to customers. Due to monopolies, their investment in technology is rather low. For example, we are very backwards in chips. Now we feel we are gripped by the throat. Also, it leads to high concentration of wealth, inequality – income inequality, and ecosystem destruction.
Where are the opportunities for the next 20 years? We need to shift from the three pillars of the economy, namely low-margin manufacturing, consumer internet, and real estate, to, what I called, technology-enabled industrial capacity, real technology that improves industrial capacity and the quality and added value of supply chains, new energy and materials, and health care. The graph on the right is dubbed by an economist as the “smiling curve”. What does it mean? China has significantly increased in economic volume, but our added value is still below that of the US. What we need to do now is to move to the upper left, which is your upper right, increasing volume while enhancing quality. This is the so-called high-quality development.
China’s industrial capacity is enormous, larger than that of US, Japan, and Germany combined, with an annual output of USD5-10 trillion, higher than most countries. But our added value is still low, or to say that the gross margin is low, about 10% to 15%. The US manufacturing industry, at its peak in the 1970s, generated a gross margin of around 30% to 40%. This 20% to 30% greater gross margin, when multiplied by USD5-10 trillion, is a huge value.
So, this is what the Chinese new economy will look like and present in the next 20 years. Thank you all.
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