破解中国债务谜团

Concerns about China’s ballooning debt indicators have been cycling on and off for nearly a decade. BIS put out an alert in September about China’s increasing “credit to GDP gap,” a warning that the pace was excessive relative to historical trends. Add to this worry the dependence of some banks on wholesale borrowing and re-emergence of shadow-banking and it is easy to understand why some observers have raised the possibility of a destabilising “Lehman moment.”

近10年来，对中国日益攀升的债务指标的担忧一直在周而复始地出现。今年9月，国际清算银行(BIS)就中国不断增大的“信贷规模/GDP缺口”(Credit-to-GDP gap)发出警告，称其增大的节奏相对于历史趋势过高了。加剧这种担心的是，一些银行依赖批发借款，而影子银行卷土重来。因此，不难理解一些观察人士为何提出中国出现破坏稳定的“雷曼时刻”(Lehman moment)的可能性。

Yet predictions of an imminent collapse seem to come and go with the seasons. Part of the explanation is that China’s debt is largely the result of state-owned banks lending to state entities. Given the government’s strong financial position, there is less risk that isolated defaults or bank runs could derail the financial system. China’s problem also differs from other crisis cases because of the unique role that escalating land prices have played in shaping debt indicators and asset values.

然而，有关马上就要崩溃的预测似乎就像季节那样来来去去。对此，部分解释是中国的债务在很大程度上是国有银行向国有实体放贷的结果。考虑到中国政府强大的财政实力，孤立的违约或银行挤兑事件搞乱金融体系的风险较低。此外，由于中国日渐攀升的地价在债务指标和资产价值现状的形成中扮演着独特角色，中国的问题也与其他危机案例不太一样。

The impact of rising land prices is unique to China because an extensive private property market only emerged after housing was privatised and land auctions were initiated a decade ago. In the aftermath, credit expansion supported a fivefold increase in land prices in the major cities (eightfold in dollar terms). This in turn has caused fixed asset investments to soar from 45 to 80 per cent of GDP. But what counts as investment for GDP purposes is gross fixed capital formation which excludes the value of land and transfers of existing property and as a share of GDP has hovered around 45 per cent. While the credit surge has driven up debt indicators, it has not spurred GDP growth.

地价攀升的影响是中国独有的现象，这是因为中国大规模私人房产市场只是在10年前住房私有化和土地拍卖启动之后才出现的。在那之后，信贷扩张支撑了大城市地价上涨五倍(以美元计算涨幅高达八倍)。这进而导致固定资产与国内生产总值(GDP)之比从45%激增至80%。不过，就GDP计算而言，投资指的是固定资本形成总额，该指标剔除土地价值和现有物业的转让，其与GDP之比一直徘徊在45%左右。尽管信贷激增推高了债务指标，但并未刺激GDP的增长。

Nevertheless, the credit expansion has contributed to what economists often refer to positively as “financial deepening” as markets are discovering the value of land based assets (housing and commercial property) formerly hidden in a socialist system. This suggests that the debt problem might be overstated. A more informative risk indicator might be the ratio of debt to asset values. This ratio was highlighted recently by Nomura analysts. As seen in Figure 1 (below) this ratio has been declining steadily over the past decade because of the increasing value of land based assets, even as the debt-to-GDP ratio has soared. Whether this might eventually trigger a financial crisis depends on the sustainability of these asset values.

不过，随着市场不断发现此前埋没于社会主义制度的基于土地的资产(住房和商用物业)的价值，信贷扩张推动了经济学家们往往给予正面评价的“金融深化”。这似乎表明债务问题也许言过其实了。更说明问题的风险指标或许是债务与资产价值之比。野村证券(Nomura)分析师最近曾强调这一比率。如图1所示，由于基于土地的资产价值不断攀升，过去10年这一比率不断下降，尽管债务与GDP之比出现飙升。最终是否会引发金融危机，要看这些资产价值的可持续性。

Two groups have been affected: households and enterprises. In the case of households, housing affordability as measured by the ratio of personal incomes to housing prices has been improving and excess inventories have been declining. Thus the possibility of a major collapse in housing prices is low. Even if housing prices did fall significantly, most households have built up substantial equity positions backed by substantial savings, so the likelihood of a destabilising impact on the financial system is limited.

两个群体受到影响：家庭和企业。从家庭方面来说，以个人收入与房价之比衡量的住房负担能力一直在提升，过高库存一直在下滑。因此，房价严重崩盘的可能性很低。即使房价确实大幅下跌，多数家庭也在大量储蓄的支持下，建立了相当大的股权头寸，因此金融体系受到破坏稳定的冲击的可能性十分有限。

But rising asset values can have significant negative implications for enterprises if returns on these assets do not keep up with debt servicing costs. Profitability is not yet a generalised problem for private companies whose returns on assets are currently about twice that of state-owned (see Figure 2). Before the financial crisis, however, rates of return for the two groups were nearly the same. The divergence came from the government’s periodic stimulus efforts which led to an excessive expansion in the production capacity of selected state firms.

但是，不断攀升的资产价值可能给企业带来显著负面影响——如果这些资产的回报赶不上偿债成本。对民营企业来说，盈利能力还不是普遍问题，它们目前的资产回报率是国有企业的两倍(参见图2)。然而，在金融危机之前，两者的回报率几乎相同。差距的拉大源自政府的周期性刺激努力，这些努力导致被选中的国企生产力过度扩张。

A consequence has been the emergence of a group of state-owned enterprises, referred to as “zombies,” that are generating huge losses. These are typically large companies operating in heavy industries, energy and construction related activities. The bad part of the problem is that most of the affected companies are concentrated in the already depressed “rust belt” regions making the solution politically more difficult. In some cases, potentially hundreds of thousands of workers need to be relocated and entire towns may become non-viable. The good part of the problem is that this is not a widespread phenomenon affecting the vast majority of companies which are private.

由此导致的一个后果是出现了一个被称为“僵尸”企业的亏损严重的国企群体。这些企业往往是经营重工业、能源和建筑相关业务的大企业。问题的糟糕之处在于，多数受影响企业集中于已经不景气的“锈带”老工业区，在政治上加大了解决难度。在某些情况下，潜在有数十万工人需要重新安置，整个城镇可能难以为继。问题的有利之处则在于，这不是一种影响在数量上占绝大多数的民营企业的普遍现象。

The authorities reissued instructions in October to have these zombie companies go bankrupt and their assets liquidated. The needed restructuring is now under way with some recent double-digit cuts in coal and steel production, recapitalisation of banks and outflows of workers to other regions. The increase in defaults suggests that the authorities are taking things more seriously. This has elevated producer prices to positive levels after years of decline. The result is an uptick in profit margins and increasing corporate revenues.

今年10月，中国当局再次发出指示，让这些僵尸企业破产并将其资产清盘。目前正在推进必要的重组：煤炭和钢铁产量最近削减幅度达到两位数，银行开展资本重组，工人外迁至其他地区。违约案例增多似乎表明，当局正在更加认真地处理问题。这些举措令生产者价格指数在多年下滑之后被推升至正数区间。结果是利润率上升，企业营收不断增加。

In sum what is seen by some as a generalised debt problem is actually more of a restructuring issue involving downsizing of a subset of state-owned enterprises. But much more action is needed in this regard before one can be confident that the worst is over.

总之，一些人眼中的普遍债务问题，实际上在更大程度上是一个重组问题，涉及对一部分国企进行瘦身。但是，这方面还需要采取多得多的行动，才能让人确信最坏的时期已经过去。

The author is a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment, former World Bank Director for China and author of the forthcoming ‘Cracking the China Conundrum’.

本文作者为美国卡内基国际和平基金会(Carnegie Endowment)高级研究员，曾任世界银行(World Bank)中国业务局局长并著有即将出版的《破解中国难题》(Cracking the China Conundrum)一书