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US stimulus only short-term fix, says Gallup chief

By Lu Haoting (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-25 07:53

China and the United States need to invent a real economic engine to power their growth, while the current infrastructure-based stimulus packages are only short-term fixes, a top executive of a leading statistical research service company has said.

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"The stimulus packages are just Band-Aids. We will not go on to the next high level of development until real growth is created through innovation of products and technologies," said Jim Clifton, chairman and CEO, Gallup.

The Washington-based Gallup is known for its public opinion polls in the United States and more than 140 countries.

Energy-saving and renewable energy technologies could possibly become the next economic growth engines after information technology and the Internet, Clifton said.

The State Council, or China's Cabinet, rolled out a 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package last year to stimulate the economy. About 37.5 percent of the investment will go to infrastructure, 25 percent to reconstruction in southwestern regions hit by a devastating earthquake last year and nearly 20 percent to low-income housing and rural infrastructure, the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planning body, said in early March.

Government spending programs are also at the heart of US President Barack Obama's $787-billion economic stimulus bill to reverse the country's steep downward economic spiral. Besides tax cuts, the package aims to pump money into infrastructure projects, healthcare, renewable energy development and conservation.

"Obama's stimulus package will work, but not for very long. It is possible that the US economy will see some growth in the second half because of the $1 trillion infused into the system," Clifton told China Daily.

Commenting on the upcoming G20 summit starting in London on April 2, Clifton called for greater cooperation to cope with the global financial crisis.

"The G20 countries have to realize we are all in this together. We actually depend on each other to breathe (financially speaking). This time we are really one world, 10 times more than what we were last fall," Clifton said.

Gallup's Consumer Spending Index showed that the US citizens' self-reported spending on stores, restaurants, gas stations and online dropped 34 percent year-on-year in January and fell 40 percent in February from a year earlier.

"It is hard to see how things can get better anywhere. The golden goose is sick," Clifton said.

He said the lack of consumer confidence is expected to spread to China although Gallup's last world poll in November showed that Chinese people's confidence was not affected as much as in the US and Europe.

"We are more interconnected than ever before," Clifton said.