2008年金融危机爆发以来，全球经济复苏缓慢。实际上，与大萧条以来历次危机相比，这次危机后的复苏是最慢的。现在有两个主要问题，一是增长乏力，另一个是通货紧缩。

中国国家主席习近平在谈到中国作为2016年20国集团轮值主席所要发挥的作用时，简明扼要地表示，20国集团重要的是应对最紧迫的宏观经济问题，以保持世界经济的稳定增长。

总体来看，金融危机毁掉了经济增长的动力，而新的、使全球经济在宏观和微观层面都发生根本性变化的增长动力尚付阙如。可以肯定地说，全球经济在未来一段时期将经历一个中低速增长的“新常态”。

IMF在其10月发表的世界经济展望报告中，再次调低2015年的全球GDP增长速度至3.1%，显示主要经济体仍面临投资、消费和出口的下行压力。多数经济学家预计，在可预见的将来，全球GDP增长速度为3－3.5%。WTO预计2015年全球贸易增长4%，大大低于危机前十年6.7%的年均增长水平。前景的确不乐观！

先看主要经济体。美国的经济复苏在经合组织国家中最快，但其速度仍令人失望地迟缓，尽管美联储推出三轮量宽措施，回购超过3万亿美元的国债和抵押贷款证券。过去五年，标普500指数成份股公司的年均收益率为6.9%，远低于金融危机之前。更说明问题的是，这些收益中只有一半来自实际业务经营，另一半来自回购本公司股票以支持股价。从2007到2014年，美国GDP累计增长8.7%，同期私人投资增长仅有4.3%。

这只说明一件事, 那就是，由于对低回报和在另一场危机中将投资迅速变现的不确定性感到担心，美国实体经济投资非常虚弱。美国的生产率在2011年到2014年放慢到年均只有0.5%，这导致工资增长的停滞。

欧洲与日本的情况更糟。除了德国和少数北欧国家，欧盟遭受了复苏缓慢和债务危机不断深化的双重打击，其失业率长期以来高达10%。日本经济处于低迷期已经超过20年，日本官方债务与GDP之比超过200%。受累于人口老龄化、经济结构僵化和生产率下滑，日本经济不可逆转地深陷泥潭。

新兴市场总体上比发达经济体好，但抑制增长的经济周期和瓶颈集中出现，导致增长放缓并伴随更大的不确定性。

显然，随着发展中国家追赶发达国家，在GDP总量和增长速度上都更快一些，全球经济版图正在发生变化。这被委婉地称为“重心转移”，意即新兴经济体的表现要比其发达国家伙伴略胜一筹。过去五年里，发展中国家每年贡献全球经济增长的50%，而中国每年贡献30%。21世纪初，发达国家与发展中国家对全球经济增长的贡献分别为80%和20%，但到了2013年，这一数字完全倒过来，变成19%和81%。

不幸的是，新兴市场同样遇到了阻力，整体经济增长明显放缓。IMF将今年新兴市场整体增长预测调低至4%，与2010年的4.5%相比显著下降。其中的主要困难包括：

1、全球经济恶化，复苏缓慢，发达国家出口市场萎缩。

2、由于美元强势和市场预期美联储加息，以美元计价的海外债务变得沉重，债务违约风险增加。2007年以来，全球债务增加到57万亿美元，而发展中国家的债务翻了一番。

3、大宗商品价格下跌，沉重打击了依靠大宗商品出口的发展中国家。例如石油，2014年是110美元一桶，现在下跌到不足50美元一桶。

4、中东、东非和乌克兰的地缘政治动荡也增加了经济复苏的困难，它不仅是对动荡地区，同时也给全球天然资源贸易增加了不确定性和风险，因为这些地区正是这类资源丰富的地方。

通缩风险正在不断增加，使全球经济复苏雪上加霜。现在无论发达国家还是发展中国家都面临通缩压力。美国的通货膨胀率在联储2%目标线以下，欧盟的通货膨胀率接近于零，甚至不久前出现负值。这一切的背景，是美联储和欧洲央行大规模的量化宽松。

摩根全球通货膨胀指数显示，过去几年里，通货紧缩在全球司空见惯。2015年第二季度，全球通货膨胀率仅为1.6%，不仅低于2014年底2%的基准，更大大低于1990至2013年全球11%的年均水平。许多经济学家担心，通缩威胁在未来两年会席卷全球，使全球经济复苏前景更加黯淡。

最让人担忧的是，更大的通缩压力正在显现，好消息却杳无声息。美联储加息的“靴子”早晚要丢下来，再加上美元强势，吸引了大量资本流入美国，导致金融市场剧烈动荡，这使经济出现转机更加无望。

作为主要储备货币，美元强弱周期的交替对全球金融市场和经济周期变化举足轻重。美联储去年退出量宽，标志历时十年的弱美元周期结束，和可能延续数年的强美元周期开始。强势美元注定给全球价格造成下行压力，特别是使全球大宗商品价格下滑，包括铜、铁矿石和石油。

过去三年，彭博大宗商品指数录得40%的下跌，同时全球初级产品指数从2014年初的180点下降到2015年7月底的124点，下跌了36.7%。如布伦特石油，从2014年8月的103.19美元一桶下降到不足45美元一桶，下跌了56%。

有些人将严重的通货紧缩归咎于中国大宗商品需求减少和对全球的消费品出口增加。这种指责完全是无稽之谈。

德国中央银行经济学家桑德拉·艾克梅尔和马库斯·库恩兰茨2013年所作的研究得出颇有说服力的结论：廉价的中国商品造成的“供给冲击”，只能解释2002年至2011年间中国以外消费价格平均1%的变化，而中国的飞速发展引发的“需求冲击”，使全球消费价格发生了3.6%的改变。全球通货膨胀有95%的因素来自中国之外。真相大白！

另一项责难，是说人民币的升值或贬值使全球价格产生剧烈波动，或出现通货紧缩。这也毫无事实根据。真相是，即使不久前人民币相对美元贬值了约3%，截至2015年7月底的一年内它仍然总体升值了13%。

中国经济已步入新常态，更加强调质量，而不是数量。两星期前结束的中共五中全会确立的政策是，中国2016年开始的“十三五规划”将贯彻创新、协调、绿色、开放、共享的发展理念。即使新常态下每年GDP增长7%左右，也等于中国的GDP一年净增加7000亿美元，几乎相当于一个中等国家全年的GDP。中国经济未来没有什么可担心的，实际上，在黯淡的全球经济前景中，中国是为数不多的亮点之一。

Global economic recovery has been sluggish ever since the onslaught of financial crisis of 2008; actually it has been the slowest as compared with recoveries after each economic crisis since the Great Depression. There are two major problems involved: One is the anemic growth and the other is deflation.

President Xi Jinping of China puts it wisely and succinctly when he talks about China's role as the rotating chair of the G20 in 2016, that it is paramount for the G20 to address the most pressing macro-economic problems in order to maintain steady growth of world economy.

In general, the financial crisis has destroyed the driving forces of economic growth while new ones are yet to appear which forced fundamental changes in global economy both at macro and micro economic levels. It is safe to say that global economy will experience a “new normal” of low-to-medium growth for some time to come.

The IMF in its World Economic Outlook published last October once again lowered world GDP growth to 3.1% for 2015, indicating continued downward pressure on major economies from investment, consumption and export. Most economists project 3%-3.5% global GDP growth for the foreseeable future. WTO's forecast about world trade growth is 4% for 2015, a much smaller figure compared with the 10-year average of 6.7% before the crisis. Indeed not a very promising situation to look forward to!

Let's take a look at major economies first. For the United States, its economic recovery is the fastest among OECD countries but still disappointingly slow despite three rounds of QEs by Federal Reserve to repurchase over $3 trillion in Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities. For the last five years, the S&P 500 companies' annual earnings averaged 6.9%, much lower than prior to the financial crisis. What is more revealing: Only half of these earnings come from real business operation and the other half from buying back their own shares to boost their stocks. From the end of 2007 to 2014 the accumulated GDP growth in the US is 8.7% while private investment grew only by 4.3% for the same period.

This tells us only one thing, that US investment in real economy is very weak for fears of low returns and uncertainty of turning investment into cash quickly in case of another crisis. American productivity also slowed to an average of less than 0.5% from 2011 to 2014, leading to stagnation of wage increases.

The picture for Europe and Japan is even bleaker. EU has been hit by both slow recovery and a deepening debt crisis except for Germany and a few Nordic countries. Its unemployment rate has hovered around 10% for a long time. Japan's economy has been in low trough for over two decades with its official debt ratio to GDP well over 200%. Japan's economy has been irreversibly bogged down by the aging of its population, rigidity of its economic structure and sliding productivity.

Emerging markets fare better than developed economies as a whole, but the economic cycles and bottlenecks that choke growth appear in clusters, resulting in slower growth amid greater uncertainty.

It is obvious that the global economic landscape is changing as developing nations are catching up with developed ones fast in terms of aggregate GDP and a faster growth rate. This is euphemistically called “gravity shift”, meaning emerging economies perform better than their developed brethrens and now contribute over 50% to annual global growth with China alone putting in 30% and more for 5 years running. At the beginning of the 21st century, the contributions to global economic growth by developed and developing nations are 80% and 20% respectively, but by 2013 the figures were totally reversed to be 19% and 81%.

Unfortunately emerging markets also have met headwinds, with their growth slowing down considerably as a whole. IMF lowered its forecast for their growth this year to 4% as a group, a sharp drop of 4.5% as compared with 2010. The primary obstacles include:

1. Deterioration of the global economy with slow recovery and shrinking export markets in developed nations;

2. With a stronger US Dollar and pending rate hike by Federal Reserve, overseas debts denominated in USD become heavier and risks for defaults are increasing. Total global debt rose to $57 trillion since 2007 and the debt for developing nations has doubled since then;

3. Prices of bulk commodities have gone down, which hit hard those developing countries dependent on their exports. Take petroleum for example. It was $110 per barrel in 2014 and now is down to less than $50 per barrel.

4. Geopolitical upheavals in the Middle East, East Africa, and Ukraine have also created impediments to economic recovery not only in the regions affected, but also added uncertainty and risks to global trade in natural resources as these regions happen to be rich in such resources.

Deflation risks are growing to further threaten global economic recovery. Both developed and developing economies are under deflationary pressure right now. The US inflation rate is under the 2% target set by the Federal Reserve, while the EU's inflation rate is close to zero and even went into negative territory some time ago. That is against the backdrop of large-scale QEs by both the Fed and the European Central Bank.

The Morgan Global Inflation Index shows that deflation has been the order of the day all over the world the last few years, with a meager 1.6% for the 2nd quarter of 2015. This is not only lower than the 2% benchmark at the end of 2014, but also alarmingly low compared with the global average of 11% during the period from 1990 to 2013. Many economists are afraid that deflation threatens to engulf the world in the next couple of years, further darkening the prospect of global economic recovery.

Most worrisome is the fact that more pressure on deflation is on the horizon and there is no good news at all. The Fed's “other shoe” of rate increase is going to drop soon or later, which coupled with a stronger dollar has already upset the apple cart by attracting a large capital inflow into the US and causing drastic financial market fluctuations.

Being the major reserve currency, the alternate cycles of a strong and weak US dollar play a determining role in global financial as well as economic periodic shifts. The Fed's exit from QEs last year signals the end of 10 years' weak dollar cycle and the beginning of a strong dollar cycle that may last a few years. The downward pressure of the strong dollar on global prices is writing on the wall, especially regarding the sliding prices of bulk commodities worldwide, including copper, iron ore, and petroleum.

For the last three years, the Bloomberg Bulk Commodity Index registered a drop of 40% while the Global Primary Goods Index decreased from 180 points in early 2014 to 124 by the end of July 2015, a drop of 36.7%. Brent Oil, for instance, went down from $103.19/b in August 2014 to less than $45 /b, a drop of 56%.

Some people ascribe the rampant deflation to China's shrinking demand for bulk commodities and expanding exports of consumer goods worldwide. There is definitely no basis for such claims.

A study done in 2013 by Sandra Eickmeier and Markus Kuhnlenz, both economists from the German Central Bank, concluded convincingly that the “supply shock” from cheap Chinese goods explained on average 1% of changes in consumer prices outside China from 2002 to 2011, while the “demand shock” from China's rapid growth accounted for 3.6% of changes in global consumer prices. About 95% of swings in global inflation were due to non-Chinese factors. Quite revealing!

Another accusation, that the RMB's appreciation or depreciation has a dramatic effect on global prices fluctuations or deflation, also has little basis in fact in reality. The truth is that even though RMB some time ago depreciated almost 3% against the US dollar, it has overall appreciated 13% in one year ending July 2015.

The Chinese economy has entered a new normal that stresses quality over quantitative growth. The CPC's Fifth Session, just concluded a few weeks ago, certified the policy of an innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared economic growth path that China will follow in the “13th Five Year Plan” beginning in 2016. Even the new normal boasts an annual GDP growth at around 7% which translates into a $700 billion or more net increase a year to China's GDP, almost equaling a year's GDP for a mid-sized country. There is really nothing to worry about China's economic future. Actually China is among the few shining stars in an otherwise quite gloomy outlook for the global economy.