爲何需正視中國的信貸風險

The volatility in China’s equity and currency markets in the first week of 2016 was reminiscent of August 2015, but more serious.

中國股票和外匯市場在今年第一週的動盪讓人想起2015年8月的情景，但情況更嚴重。

Even though the Chinese equity market doesn’t matter that much fundamentally to China or to the global economy, financial policy and the drip-feed depreciation of the renminbi matter a lot. There is a rising anxiety about the credibility of policymakers and regulators, and about the state of the economy, the reform agenda and now a looming credit crisis.

中國股市對中國或全球經濟都沒有多大根本性影響，但中國金融政策和人民幣的逐漸貶值影響很大。政策制定者和監管者的公信力、經濟狀況、改革議程、還有日益迫近的信貸危機都讓投資者越來越感到焦慮。

Even though December’s early readings for both manufacturing and services were disappointing, infrastructure and other policy support programmes have helped moderate the downtrend in growth. The beleaguered real-estate sector has experienced higher sales, even higher prices, in large cities, and some tumbling industrial indicators have stabilised. Yet we should not be distracted.

儘管12月製造業和服務業活動的初值均令人失望，但基礎設施和其他政策支持計劃幫助緩和了經濟增長的下行趨勢。在不景氣的房地產行業，大城市出現銷量上升、甚至房價上漲。一些大幅下滑的工業指標企穩。然而，我們不應被這些分散掉注意力。

The year-end Central Economic Work Conference agreed an implicit 6.5 per cent economic growth target, supported “as necessary” by accommodative fiscal and monetary policies. Neither the state of the economy nor the country’s politics suggest much will be done.

年底的中央經濟工作會議定下了沒有言明的6.5%經濟增長目標，“必要時”會以積極財政政策和寬鬆貨幣政策來支持這一目標。無論從經濟狀況來看，還是從國內政治形勢來看，都應該不會採取大量舉措。

Reforms to the real economy and state monopolies have stalled, or succumbed to pushback. Policies designed to develop new sectors have not been matched by those needed to tackle problems in larger ones, such as overcapacity. Tellingly, China’s most serious problem — relentless debt accumulation — received passive attention at most.

對實體經濟和國有壟斷企業的改革已經停滯，甚至被迫後退。雖然出臺了發展新興產業的政策，但缺乏解決規模較大行業存在的產能過剩等問題所需的政策。很突出的一點是，中國最嚴峻的問題——債務持續累積——頂多受到被動注意。

The growth in Chinese non-financial debt has been analysed since the 2008-09 bank lending stimulus programme. It has risen from about 100 per cent to about 250 per cent of gross domestic product but, far from slowing down with the economy, the pace of debt accumulation has picked up in the past one to two years. Total social financing, a broad measure of monthly credit creation, is growing at nearly three times the rate of officially recorded money GDP growth, or more if you don’t believe the official GDP data. Curiously, many private companies face tight credit conditions, so rapid credit creation may be largely for the benefit of the cash-flows of the highly indebted real-estate sector, local governments and state enterprise sectors.

自2008/09年藉助銀行放貸的刺激計劃推出後，中國非金融債務的增長就是一個分析對象。非金融債務與GDP的比例從100%左右升至約250%，但近一兩年來，債務累積速度非但沒有與經濟同步放緩，反而有所加快。社會融資規模（衡量月度信貸創造的廣義指標）的增速是官方名義GDP增長率的近三倍——如果你不相信官方GDP數據的話，那就不止三倍了。奇怪的是，很多民營企業面臨信貸緊張狀況，因此，快速的信貸創造可能主要流向嚴重負債的房地產行業、地方政府和國有企業主導行業。

Some financial policies have been introduced by way of countermeasures, but to little effect. For example, the government clamped down in 2013 on borrowing by local government financing vehicles, only to relax the curbs last year. It also introduced a local government bond debt-swap scheme last year to allow expensive bank debt to be exchanged for cheaper debt instruments. Banks duly bought more than Rmb3tn of bonds, but traditional lending growth continued regardless.

作爲對策，一些金融政策陸續推出，但收效甚微。例如，政府在2013年禁止地方政府融資工具借款，但去年又放鬆了限制。去年政府出臺了一項地方政府債券債務轉換計劃，允許將昂貴的銀行債務置換爲更廉價的債務工具。銀行購買了規模適中的逾3萬億元人民幣債券，但傳統貸款仍然任性地持續增長。

After encouraging the development of shadow banking between 2009 and 2013, lending restrictions were enforced in 2014, but a fall in financial institutions’ off-balance sheet assets simply showed up in an expansion in the main banking system’s assets.

繼2009年至2013年期間鼓勵影子銀行業發展，政府於2014年對該領域實施放貸限制，但金融機構表外資產規模下降的同時，主要銀行業體系的資產出現擴張。

Although government officials speak occasionally of the need to allow corporate defaults and restructuring, and recognise bad debts in the banking system, political and institutional blockages to such outcomes are formidable.

儘管政府官員有時也會講，有必要允許企業違約和重組，有必要承認銀行體系中的壞賬，但政治和制度阻力巨大，難以出現這種結果。

Instead, all we are likely to see is more credit easing, in the wake of the six initiatives since late 2014 to cut interest rates and banks’ reserve requirements, albeit to no economic effect. The credit binge, then, will go on until it can’t.

相反，我們可能看到更多信貸寬鬆舉措出爐。自2014年末以來，當局已6次採取降準降息舉措，只不過對經濟毫無效用。信貸熱潮還將持續下去，直到無法持續。

Decisive factors will be the compromised debt-servicing capacity of borrowers, and the behaviour of banks under the weight of rising non-performing and bad loans and emerging funding difficulties as loan-to-deposit ratios increase further.

決定性因素有兩點，一個是借款者已減弱的償債能力；第二個是在貸存比進一步上升之際，揹負着不良貸款及壞賬上升和出現新融資困難的壓力，銀行會有什麼行爲。

It is in this context that we might reflect on the announcement of a $512bn fall in currency reserves in 2015. Since China has a current account and net direct investment surplus of about $600bn, implied capital outflows must have been close to $1tn. Some of this was capital flight. Given the interplay between capital flight, a more uncertain “managed” currency depreciation and a private credit binge that’s going in the wrong direction, China’s credit crisis may be approaching just that little bit faster.

在這種背景下，我們來思考一下2015年中國外匯儲備減少5120億美元這一消息的含義。中國擁有約6000億美元的經常賬戶和淨直接投資盈餘，因此資本流出規模應該接近1萬億美元。其中一些是資本外逃。考慮到三個方面——資本外逃、更加不確定的“有管理”的貨幣貶值，以及沿着錯誤方向發展的私營部門信貸熱潮——的相互作用，中國的信貸危機或許略微加快了腳步，正在不斷逼近。

George Magnus is an associate at Oxford university’s China Centre and senior economic adviser to UBS

喬治氠格努斯(George Magnus)是牛津大學(Oxford University)中國中心(China Centre)研究員、瑞銀(UBS)高級經濟顧問