分析：看不透的中国林业China seeks path through the woods

Less than a decade into big reforms, China’s forestry sector is facing scrutiny like never before.

进行了不到10年的大举改革之后，中国林业目前正面临着前所未有的审视。

Foreign investors have had a rude awakening after the two biggest Chinese forestry groups listed on international stock markets were accused of fraud, causing their shares to plunge and suffer trading halts. Both companies deny the allegations.

两家在海外上市的最大的中国林业公司出现问题后，外国投资者已猛然醒悟。这两家公司被控欺诈，导致公司股价暴跌并被停牌。两家公司均否认这些指控。

Toronto-listed Sino Forest, which controls plantations across southern China, has lost more than 80 per cent of its market value this month as it fights allegations from Carson Block, a short-seller, that it overstated its assets and routed money through an opaque web of intermediaries to defraud investors.

在多伦多上市的嘉汉林业(Sino Forest)控制着中国南方的一些林地，本月该公司市值跌逾80%，该公司正试图反驳卖空者卡森•布洛克(Carson Block)的指控。布洛克称，该公司夸大了资产规模，并通过不透明的中介网络转移资金，以欺骗投资者。

Meanwhile China Forestry, whose biggest investor is US private equity group Carlyle, has been suspended from trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange for the past five months. The company’s chief executive was arrested for alleged embezzlement in February.

与此同时，过去5个月，中国森林(China Forestry)在香港证交所上市的股票一直被停牌。今年2月，该公司首席执行官因涉嫌挪用公款被捕。中国森林的最大股东是美国私人股本集团凯雷(Carlyle)。

The two cases follow controversy in China’s forestry sector after a decade of deregulation in which swaths of the country’s pine, poplar, fir, oak and birch plantations have moved into the hands of private entrepreneurs through often opaque transactions with local governments.

在这两家公司的事情之前，外界对于中国林业一直存在争议。经历了10年的林地放宽管制过程，中国大片的松树、杨树、冷杉、橡树和桦树林地落入私人企业家手中——通过与地方政府之间往往有欠透明的交易。

Hugh Humfrey, partner at Timberland Investment Resources Europe, a forestry investment group, said the few opportunities for foreigners to invest in Chinese timberland he had seen all appeared too risky.

林业投资集团Timberland Investment Resources欧洲公司合伙人休•赫姆弗雷(Hugh Humfrey)表示，自己所看到的为数不多的外国人投资中国林业的机会，看起来风险都太高。

“We’re pretty dubious about the legal and regulation aspect of it all,” he said. The other big issue, he said, was the lack of accurate historical data on tree growth in China, making it difficult to construct financial forecasts.

他表示：“我们对于该行业的法律和监管情况都非常没有把握。”他表示，另外一个重要问题，是缺乏有关中国林业增长的准确历史数据，这让人难以作出财务预测。

In the US, Japan and elsewhere in the developed world, forestry has become a popular asset class among even the most cautious investors such as pension funds because of its long record and a foundation of strong property rights. In China, however, investing in trees is an altogether riskier proposition.

在美国、日本以及其它发达国家，由于长期的记录和稳固的林权基础，即使是在养老基金等最为谨慎的投资者中，林业也已成为了一个受欢迎的资产类别。然而，在中国，投资林业完全是一种风险更大的主张。

“Even before the Sino Forest story broke out, we had always been very sceptical about all agricultural companies in China,” said Eddie Tam, head of Hong Kong-based hedge fund Central Asset Investments, citing the sector’s record of low profitability and history of corporate governance problems.

香港对冲基金Central Asset Investments负责人Eddie Tam表示：“甚至在嘉汉林业的消息爆出之前，我们对所有内地农业公司一直都持高度怀疑的态度。”至于原因，他谈到了内地林业的低利润率记录以及以往的公司治理问题。

Forestry is big business in China. According to government statistics, total output of the industry in 2009 was Rmb1,750bn ($270bn).

林业在中国规模巨大。政府数据显示，2009年该行业的总产值为1.75万亿元人民币（合2700亿美元）。

However, it is much harder to say who owns the forests: China’s forests are mostly owned by “collectives”, which are councils controlled by local government officials. Under the current privatisation reforms, the use rights for these forests are supposed to be distributed to individual farmers, who are then free to sell the use right to companies if they choose to.

然而，要明确林地所有者的难度要大得多：中国的林地多为“集体”所有，即地方政府官员所控制的村委会。按照目前的私有化改革方案，这些林地的使用权应该分配给农民，而后农民如果愿意的话，可以自行将使用权出售给企业。

The rest is owned primarily by the state and administered by the State Forest Administration. Companies can only control this land by acquiring a “land use right”, typically for 30, 50 or 70 years, which can be traded and sold like a property deed.

其余林地主要归政府所有，由国家林业局(State Forest Administration)管理。企业只能通过购买“土地使用权”来控制林地，期限通常为30年、50年或70年，可以像房地产契约那样交易和出售。

Acquiring these rights from local governments is a delicate process in which bribes and corruption are widespread, according to market participants. Many private groups are getting rich by flipping land use rights as prices appreciate, rather than doing the logging themselves.

市场参与者表示，从地方政府手中获得这些权利是一个微妙的过程，其中贿赂和腐败现象普遍存在。许多私营企业是通过在价格上涨时将土地使用权转手——而非通过自己采伐——来致富。

Xu Jintao, a forestry expert at Peking University, said: “Big companies establish their forestry business though links with the local government, and a lot of these deals are established through a not-very-transparent process, which makes the farmers unhappy.”

北京大学(Peking University)林业专家徐晋涛表示：“一些大公司通过与地方政府的关系开展林业业务，很多此类交易都是通过不太透明的过程完成的，这让农民很不高兴。”

In some cases local governments have had to break their contracts with forestry companies because of protests from farmers, he said.

他表示，在某些案例中，由于农民的抗议，地方政府不得不撕毁与林业公司之间的合同。

To complicate matters, China has no central land registry to provide comprehensive data on who controls which forests under what terms. PwC, the audit firm employed by Sino Forest to investigate Mr Block’s allegations, expects to take two to three months going through the company’s records before it will be able to report its findings.

令情况更为复杂的是：中国没有一套集中土地登记制度，提供有关林地控制权归属以及相关条款的完整数据。嘉汉林业已聘用审计公司普华永道(PwC)对布洛克提出的指控进行调查，普华永道预计将花费两到三个月的时间，对该公司的记录进行调查，然后才能公布调查结果。

But for many investors, two months may be too long a wait. Indeed, Paulson & Co, the $37bn hedge fund controlled by John Paulson, sold all its shares in Sino Forest on Friday, having suffered a $500m loss.

然而，对于很多投资者而言，两个月的等待时间或许太久了。实际上，规模为370亿美元的对冲基金保尔森公司(Paulson & Co)上周五就清空了其持有的全部嘉汉林业的股票，亏损5亿美元。保尔森公司由约翰•保尔森(John Paulson)控股。