鸡眼图片挖出根部图片:中国经济硬着陆风险有多大？

2011年 10月 12日 07:15中国经济硬着陆风险有多大？
评论(29)黄益平

投资者越来越担忧中国经济硬着陆的风险，最近几周的股票价格下跌和中国主权债务信贷违约掉期息差扩大就体现了这种担忧。这可能是由于越来越多的城市房价下跌、许多中小企业出现违约以及地方政府融资平台经历财务困境等消息。

类似的问题曾经导致其他国家的经济活动崩溃。不过担心中国经济会立即出现硬着陆也未免太夸张了。

中国与出现问题的那些国家截然不同的地方在于，其家庭、银行、中央政府和对外部门的资产负债表状况相对较好。由于拥有庞大的经常帐户盈余和巨额外汇储备，再加上人民币被低估的状况，中国不会经历1997年亚洲金融危机那种情况。

许多老练的国际投资者将房价下跌视为重大麻烦即将来临的信号。然而这种下跌正是中国政府通过房屋限购政策一手促成的。如果房价下跌开始对宏观经济造成重大影响，政府可以轻易撤销限制。而且即便房价继续下跌，也不太可能导致香港和美国分别在1997年和2007年所遭遇的被迫去杠杆化。

中国家庭的杠杆率仍然相当低。抵押贷款总额仅相当于国内生产总值(GDP)15%左右，而且还不及一年的家庭储蓄总额。2004年和2008年，上海和深圳的房价分别大幅下跌。虽然当时这两个城市的楼市投资都明显放缓，但对宏观经济的影响很小。

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images尽管对房价崩盘的担忧加剧，但是建筑工地还在紧张的施工中。市场参与者对中小企业困境及其显示的非正式贷款问题的担忧也有所夸大。中国央行紧缩货币政策已经一年有余，经济活动有所放缓。一部分中小企业因劳动力成本和资金成本升高而倒闭是很正常的事情。

非正式贷款本身风险很高。然而这部分贷款总额据估计为人民币4万亿元（合6,270亿美元），仅相当于银行业信贷总额的8%左右。虽然有大量关于中小企业和非正式贷款问题的媒体报道，但其中绝大部分都出现在温州市。温州只是中国的一个小城市，在中国GDP中占比不足1%。

地方政府通过表外实体总计借贷人民币10.7万亿元，相当于GDP的27%，这是金融和财政体系的一个潜在问题。很大一部分贷款都用于过去三年的投资项目，尤其是基础设施建设。这些贷款从今年开始逐渐到期，与地方政府相关的实体很难直接归还。但地方政府有强烈的政治意愿和充足的政府资产，足以保证这些贷款不至于变成坏账，至少在2013年初中国领导层换届之前不会如此。

当前，中国大多数经济问题都与其金融体制结构调整的不完全有关。尽管中国在过去几十年就金融改革推出了重要举措，但其金融制度仍具有高度的压制性。最重要的是，中国金融机构的种种行为仍更像是分配信贷额度的政策部门。关键利率由中国政府严格管控，私营部门的融资渠道仍十分有限。

不过，尽管存在上述问题(以及由于2008年和2009年贷款刺激计划产生的不可避免的不良贷款数量增多现象)，中资银行的资产负债表目前仍十分健康。这些银行的平均不良贷款率远低于2%，平均资本充足率超过10%，而存款准备金率则高达21.5%。所有这些都为中资银行在不引发系统性金融风险的情况下，吸收不良资产提供了充分的空间。

一些投资者对最近银行存款减少表示担心，如果存款减少的趋势继续下去，可能会抑制银行的流动性。存款减少不是因为市场对中资银行失去了信心，而是因为存款人把目光投向了比普通账户利息回报更高的领域，普通存款账户的利息回报会受到利率调节的影响。随着非正规贷款公司违约率的提高，存款可能会回流至中资银行。

中国经济的终极考验在于财政的可持续性。如果情况继续恶化，中国政府会依然具备刺激经济、防止硬着陆的资源吗？

毕竟，中国大多数金融机构都为国家所有，过去几年的大规模信贷扩张也是政府的意思。因此，如果不良资产快速增加，中国政府将必须为此承担责任。

中国政府公共债务占本国GDP的比重为18%左右，若算上地方政府的借款和其它地区的或有债务，中国总负债占GDP的比重很可能是在大概60%至80%之间。中国政府仍有大量的国有资产，其价值约为中国GDP 的15倍。所以，至少从短期而言，北京方面确实具有防止其经济出现系统性崩溃的充足资源。

外国投资者目前认为，中国内部的结构性因素，如房价下跌、坏账数量增多等，可能会引发硬着陆。不过更大的威胁来自于海外的二次衰退。中国的经济增长将放缓至稍高于8%的水平，低于近年来10%或更高的增速，但仍有创造就业的能力。

只有全球再次出现经济衰退时，中国才会遭遇经济增长的硬着陆，其增速可低至4%到6%不等，因为在中国政府抽出空发展国内市场之前，中国出口推动型经济因需求疲软受到影响。不过，人们应明白的关键一点是，对中国经济硬着陆几率的猜测应当以全球增长假设为依据，而不是对中国一些坏消息的短期忧虑。

（编者注：黄益平是巴克莱资本(Barclay's Capital)新兴亚洲市场首席经济学家。）

2011年 10月 12日 07:15Reading the China Risk

YIPING HUANG

Investors have grown increasingly concernedabout the risk of a hard landing in China, as shown by the decline ofstock prices and the widening spreads on credit default swaps for itssovereign bonds in recent weeks. This was probably due to the news ofdeclining housing prices in a growing number of cities, the default ofmany small- and medium-sized enterprises, and financial difficultiesexperienced by local-government funding platforms.

Similarproblems have led to the collapse of economic activity in othercountries. However, fears of an imminent hard landing in China areoverblown.

What distinguishes China from countries that crateredare the relatively healthy balance sheets of its households, banks,central government and external sector. China will not experienceanything like the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 given its large currentaccount surplus, gigantic foreign exchange reserves and undervaluedcurrency.

Many experienced international investors look at adecline in housing prices as a signal of serious trouble to come.However, Beijing itself has engineered this decline using policiesrestricting house purchases. If this starts to cause major macroeconomicconsequences, the government could easily reverse the restrictions. Andeven if house prices continue to decline, this is unlikely to cause thekind of forced deleveraging that hit Hong Kong in 1997 and the U.S. in2007.

Chinese households' leverage ratio is still quite low.Total mortgage loans are only about 15% of GDP and less than one year'sworth of households' saving. House prices declined significantly inShanghai in 2004 and in Shenzhen in 2008. While housing investmentslowed visibly in both cases, there were minimal macroeconomicconsequences.

Market participants' concern about the SME problemand its implications for informal lending is also exaggerated. ThePeople's Bank of China has been tightening monetary policy for more thana year and economic activity has been moderating. It is entirely normalfor a number of SMEs to fail as costs of both labor and capital rise.

Informallending is risky by definition. At an estimated 4 trillion yuan ($627billion), however, it is only about 8% of the banking sector's totalcredit. While there are large number of media reports on problems ofSMEs and informal lending, most cases occurred in Wenzhou city. Wenzhouis a very small part of the country, accounting for less than 1% ofChina's GDP.

Local governments, with total borrowing of 10.7trillion yuan or 27% of GDP largely via off-balance-sheet entities, are apotential problem for both the financial and fiscal system. Much of theborrowing was used for investment projects, especially construction ofinfrastructure, during the past three years. It will be difficult forlocal-government-linked entities to immediately pay back the loans whenthey gradually mature, starting from this year. But the localgovernments have both strong political wills and sufficient state assetsto keep these borrowings from turning bad, at least before theleadership transition in early 2013.

Most of the current economicproblems are, in one way or another, related to incompleterestructuring of the financial system. Despite major steps of reformsduring the past decades, the Chinese financial system remains highlyrepressive. Most importantly, financial institutions still act more likepolicy agents in allocating credit. Key interest rates are tightlyregulated by the state, and the private sector's access to financeremains highly restricted.

Yet despite these problems─and aninevitable uptick in nonperforming loans following the 2008-09credit-driven stimulus─the banks' balance sheets are quite healthytoday. Their average nonperforming loan ratio is way below 2%, theiraverage capital adequacy ratio is above 10%, while their reserverequirement ratio is at 21.5%. All these provide ample room for thebanks to absorb bad assets without causing systemic financial risks.

Someinvestors worry about a recent decline in bank deposits, a trend thatcould strain banks' liquidity if it continues. This was not caused by aloss of confidence in the banks, but rather by depositors lookingelsewhere for better returns than those available in regular accounts,which are subject to interest rate regulation. As the default rate forinformal lending vehicles rises, deposits may return to the banks.

Theultimate test for the Chinese economy lies with the fiscalsustainability question. If conditions continue to deteriorate, does thegovernment still have the resources to stimulate the economy andprevent a hard landing?

After all, most of the financialinstitutions are still majority owned by the state and the dramaticcredit expansion during the past years was directed by Beijing.Therefore, the government will have to assume responsibility if badassets grow rapidly.

The central government's public debts standat about 18% of GDP. Adding local government borrowing and contingentliabilities in other areas, total liabilities are probably about 60% to80% of GDP. The government still has a large pool of state-owned assets,which are worth about 15 times GDP. Therefore Beijing does havesufficient resources to prevent a systemic meltdown of the economy, atleast in the short term.

Foreign investors are assuming thatstructural factors within China─falling property prices, rising badloans or the like─will make for a hard landing. The greater threat,though, is a double-dip recession abroad. Left to its own devices,China's growth would soften to just above 8%, down from 10% or more inrecent years but still able to create jobs.

Only if there isanother global recession would China suffer a hard landing of growthreduced as low as 4% to 6% as it suffers weak demand for itseconomy-driving exports before it has had time to develop domesticmarkets. The key point to understand, though, is that guesses about thelikelihood of this event should be based on global growth assumptionsand not short-term worry about some bad headlines in China.

Mr. Huang is chief economist for emerging Asia at Barclay's Capital.