Investment Strategies to Exploit Economic Growth in China
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RECENT RESEARCH INVESTMENT STRATEGIES TO EXPLOIT ECONOMIC GROWTH IN CHINA By Burton G. Malkiel, Ph.D., Jianping Mei, Ph.D., and Rui Yang, Ph.D. Editor’s Note: Jianping Mei has been a consultant and finan- indirect methods of investing in China’s future is likely to cial adviser to a number of the financial institutions men- provide the best risk/reward tradeoff for investors. tioned in this paper. Some of these institutions may have investments in securities discussed in the paper. China’s Future Growth he legendary movie producer Samuel Goldwyn ince the beginning of economic reforms two was quoted as saying that predictions are very decades ago, the economy in China has produced Thard to make, especially about the future. Sreal growth rates of between 8 percent and 10 per- Similarly, it is difficult to project the future growth of cent per year. We believe that China will continue to expe- companies and economies. Errors in forecasts are more rience exceptional growth for decades to come at rates the rule rather than exception. Nevertheless, we believe well above those of any other large country in the world. that there is an excellent probability that the growth of In this paper we first show why China will enjoy the Chinese economy will continue to be exceptionally growth rates of economic activity well above those in the rapid over the decades to come. We believe this to be a developed world. But economic growth does not neces- high-probability forecast for three reasons: 1) the mar- sarily translate into high-security returns. Indeed, returns ket economic institutions necessary for growth already from investments in Chinese equities have been unattrac- have been established and China already has enjoyed tive for the past decade, and corruption and corporate- years of success; 2) a pragmatic government will con- governance issues, as well as a variety of restrictions, tinue to guide the economic transformation of the econ- make direct investment in Chinese opportunities diffi- omy; and 3) there is an abundance of underutilized cult. But we also will show that Chinese equities now are human capital in China as well as the considerable sav- attractively priced relative to their earnings, their histori- ings necessary to fuel future growth. cal valuations, and their growth rates and that some risks In his excellent book on the Chinese economy, have been attenuated over time. We then will proceed to Gregory Chow (2003) demonstrates that an ostensibly examine the potential rewards and risks of the various communist government can adopt institutional changes indirect methods U.S. investors can use to access the that allow market forces to play a positive role in pro- Chinese market. For example, we will examine the lower- moting economic growth. The household responsibility risk strategies of investing in companies not necessarily system created a revolution in agriculture in the Chinese domiciled in China but that sell to or service Chinese economy. The energy of township enterprises played a consumers and producers and thus can profit from the vital role in the early years of China’s rapid growth. An rapid future growth of the Chinese economy. We con- open policy of encouraging foreign investment con- clude that a mixed strategy involving both direct and tributed to growth by allowing the importation of tech- 32 THE JOURNAL OF INVESTMENT CONSULTING © 2006 Investment Management Consultants Association, Inc. Reprint with Permission Only. RECENT RESEARCH nology, capital, and managerial know-how. Moreover, hosted their first Olympic games in 1964 and 1988, the competition from private enterprises is acting as a respectively. Both Japan and Korea, two countries with spur to force state enterprises to become more efficient. entrepreneurial cultures similar to China’s, enjoyed long A pragmatic government, dedicated to the pursuit periods of economic growth and structural change from of economic growth, also gives us reason to believe that the period beginning with their planning for the rapid growth can continue. Whatever the merits and Olympic Games. China’s gross domestic product (GDP) demerits of the Chinese political system, years of exper- per capita is still quite low, similar to that of Japan and imentation have given government leaders first-hand Korea at the time they hosted the games. There is thus experience with the merits of a market-based system. no reason to believe that China is nearing the end of its The Chinese are unlikely to abandon such a successful rapid-growth period. Figure 1 shows the real growth of system. The consensus regarding market reforms that economic activity as well as the real equity returns of has been developed thus far, as well as the infrastructure Japan and Korea during the twenty years following plan- building undertaken by the government, will help pro- ning for the Olympic Games. vide a positive environment for future growth. Moreover, But by far the most important reason to believe that we expect continued structural changes that will trans- growth will continue is the high quantity and quality of form the economy increasingly to one that is market- human capital in China. Human capital in the form of a based and avoids the heavy hand of overregulation. skilled and hard-working labor force, as well as an The hosting of the Olympic Games in 2008 may entrepreneurial culture, is undoubtedly the most impor- well be a watershed event for the Chinese economy. The tant engine for economic growth in the future. And investment firm of Goldman Sachs has noted remarkable China has well more than 100 million potential workers similarities between China now and Japan in 1961 and eager and ready to join the labor force. No other devel- Korea in 1985, three years before the latter two countries oping country, except possibly India, has the available human resources and the accompanying ambition and FIGURE 1 culture to sustain growth at the level that is possible in Real GDP Growth and Equity Dollar Annual China. The Chinese have a great sense of their place in Compounded Returns. history and a high degree of confidence that they can Japan (1960–1980) and Korea (1984–2004) climb to the top again. As Chinese enterprises begin to 12 operate under more transparency and better legal pro- tections, and with China’s entry into the World Trade 10 Organization (WTO) and the increasing openness that such membership implies, we believe that the economy can continue to grow at rates well above the average in 8 the developed and developing world. In considering the competitive advantage of China in 6 an increasingly integrated world economy, it is important to underscore the important cost advantage enjoyed by 4 China. During the early 2000s it has been estimated that city dwellers in China earned about sixty cents per hour. 2 Peasants had incomes of about one third that amount and therefore flooded into the cities seeking a better life with 0 Japan Korea greater economic opportunity. The investment firm of AllianceBernstein has estimated that foreign joint ven- GDP Growth Equity Return tures in the Chinese auto industry pay total compensa- tion to labor of about $5 an hour. Total compensation Source: Goldman Sachs (2003 and 2004) costs in the U.S. and German auto industry are about $53 VOL. 7, NO. 3, WINTER 2005–2006 33 © 2006 Investment Management Consultants Association, Inc. Reprint with Permission Only. RECENT RESEARCH and $65 an hour, respectively. With The implications of these develop- a huge reserve army of cheap labor, ments for both investors and the China can continue to keep labor While wages are even lower in world economy are enormous. costs low. other parts of the developing While wages are even lower in Is Growth Sustainable? other parts of the developing world, only China offers an hile the outlook for world, only China offers an opti- optimal mix of not only low growth looks positive, mal mix of not only low wages but critics argue that wages but also high productivity W also high productivity and a rela- China’s high economic growth rate tively advanced supply-chain and a relatively advanced sup- may not be sustainable because of infrastructure. Moreover, highly ply-chain infrastructure. its input-driven growth model: skilled Chinese workers such as China depends on an increasing use engineers can be hired at a fraction of labor and capital inputs to manu- of the cost of similarly trained facture growth. This argument has workers in the West. This explains the enormous some merit because recent Chinese growth increasingly growth of foreign direct investment in China, as foreign has been driven by its massive infrastructure investment firms attempt to exploit the labor-arbitrage opportuni- as well as by speculative property investment in some ties. According to China’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and major cities. Investors are especially alarmed by the fact Economic Cooperation, foreign-related firms now pro- that recent economic statistics reveal that real investment duce more than half of China’s exports. in China accounts for more than 40 percent of its GDP, There always are scenarios where the growth fore- while consumption accounts for only about 40 percent. cast we have presented will not be realized. Rural unrest This compares with a 20-percent investment and 70-per- as the income distribution in China becomes increas- cent consumption share in the United States. This high ingly skewed is always a possibility. Political instability investment-rate coupled with low-cost labor reminds never can be ruled out. A not-fully-developed legal sys- people of the input-driven growth in many Asian coun- tem and a lack of credibility in the governance struc- tries before the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s.