IMF就中國企業債務問題發出警告

China’s corporate debt risks sparking a bigger crisis if the authorities fail to tackle it, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)警告稱，如果中國當局應對不力，中國的企業債務可能會引發一場更大的危機。

It is the latest red flag over China’s ballooning debt, which rose to a record 237 per cent of gross domestic product in the first quarter on the back of massive lending designed to boost economic growth.

這是各方針對中國不斷膨脹的債務發出的最新警示信號。在旨在提振經濟增長的大規模放貸的推動下，今年第一季度，中國債務相對國內生產總值(GDP)的比例已升至創紀錄的237%。

That has put the subject to the fore of this year’s annual IMF review of the Chinese economy with a team from the Fund set to conclude its latest monitoring mission on Tuesday.

這使得IMF在其今年對中國經濟的年度評估工作中將該問題放在了首要位置，該機構的一個團隊將在週二完成最新的評估工作。

“Corporate debt remains a serious — and growing — problem [in China] that must be addressed immediately and with a commitment to serious reforms,” said David Lipton, the IMF’s number 2 and the leader of its latest mission, which ends on Tuesday.

IMF的二號人物、此項最新評估的負責人戴維•利普頓（David Lipton，上圖）表示：“（在中國）企業債務仍然是一個嚴重且不斷惡化的問題，必須立即加以解決，並承諾實施重大的改革。”

Speaking in Shenzhen, where then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping kicked off China’s experiments with capitalism more than three decades ago, Mr Lipton pointed to the potential risk to the global economy.

在深圳發表演講時，利普頓指出了中國債務問題給全球經濟帶來的潛在風險。30多年前，中國當時的最高領導人鄧小平在深圳開啓了資本主義試驗。

“We have learned over and over in the past 20 years how disruptions in one country’s economy and markets can reverberate worldwide,” he said, citing the global “spillovers” from last year’s turmoil in Chinese markets.

“過去20年，我們已經反覆領教了一國經濟和市場的動盪可以在世界範圍內造成多大的影響，”利普頓說。他提到了去年中國市場動盪帶來的全球“溢出效應”。

He warned that efforts to address China’s corporate debt load — which at 145 per cent of GDP was “very high by any measure” — had seen only “limited progress”.

他警告，解決中國企業債務負擔的努力只取得了“有限進展”，中國相當於GDP的145%的企業債務“按任何標準衡量都屬非常高的水平”。

“With the rapid increase in credit growth in 2015 and early 2016, and the continued high rates of investment, the problem is growing. This is a key fault line in the Chinese economy . . . And it is important that China tackles it soon,” he said.

他說：“隨着2015年和2016年初信貸增長的迅速提速、以及投資率的居高不下，這個問題正變得日益嚴重。這是中國經濟的一個主要薄弱環節……重要的是中國要快速解決它。”

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, has long warned of the dangers of the corporate debt build-up, according to people familiar with the central bank’s deliberations.

熟悉中國央行內部討論的人士透露，行長周小川長期以來一直在警告企業債務累積之危險。

In May the official People’s Daily newspaper picked up the theme, running a front-page interview with an unidentified “authoritative figure” who warned that soaring debt levels could trigger a “systemic” financial crisis.

今年5月，官方的《人民日報》(People’s Daily)選中了這一話題，在頭版刊發了一篇對身份不明的“權威人士”的訪談，這名人士警告稱，不斷飆升的債務水平可能引發“系統性”金融危機。

China has since launched a series of initiatives to whittle back the bad debt sitting on banks’ balance sheets, including securitisation and debt-for-equity swaps — although Mr Lipton echoed analysts who see these as having limited resuts and doing little to eliminate bad debt from the overall financial system.

中國已推出了一系列舉措，以降低銀行資產負債表上的壞賬，其中包括證券化和債轉股——儘管利普頓和一些分析人士都認爲，這些舉措成效有限，並未起到將壞賬從整個金融系統中消除的作用。

Zhang Tao, deputy governor of People’s Bank of China, speaking at a financial forum in Shanghai on Sunday, signaled a willingness to let zombie companies die. “Any industry that lacks the mechanism to elevate winners and eliminate losers can’t develop in a healthy and sustainable way,” he said.

6月12日，中國央行副行長張濤在上海出席一個金融論壇時表達了想要淘汰殭屍企業的意願：“一個沒有優勝劣汰機制的行業是不可能健康持續發展的。”

He said an orderly system would be put in place for failed financial institutions: “We will permit financial institutions to go bankrupt in an orderly way, restructure those that need restructuring, shut those that need to be shut, and strengthen market discipline.”

張濤表示對於經營失敗的金融機構要建立有序的處置和退出框架：“……允許金融機構有序破產。該重組的重組，該倒閉的倒閉，增強市場的約束。”

Mr Lipton highlighted the state-owned enterprises, which he said were responsible for 55 per cent of the corporate debt pile despite representing 22 per cent of economic output and which “are essentially on life support”.

利普頓特別指出了國企問題。他表示國企在中國經濟產出中僅佔22%，而且“基本靠救助維持”，但其債務規模卻佔企業債務總額的55%。

“In a setting of slower economic growth, the combination of declining earnings and rising indebtedness is undermining the ability of companies to pay suppliers or service their debts,” Mr Lipton warned. “Banks are holding more and more non-performing loans [and] the past year’s credit boom is just extending the problem.”

利普頓警告稱：“在經濟增長放緩的背景下，盈利下降加上債務上升，削弱了企業支付供應商款項或償還債務的能力。銀行持有的不良貸款越來越多，而過去一年的信貸熱只會放大這一問題。”

While concluding the issue is “manageable”, he warned that a recent IMF estimate that put the potential losses for China’s banks from bad corporate loans at 7 per cent of GDP was a conservative estimate that excluded exposures in the “shadow banking” sector.

利普頓雖然總結說這一問題是“可控的”，但他警告稱，IMF近期所估計的、中國銀行業在不良企業貸款上的潛在損失達到GDP的7%是個保守估計，未將“影子銀行業”的敞口考慮在內。

The risk was also that if the problem wasn’t dealt with speedily it could grow into a large crisis. “Company debt problems today can become systemic debt problems tomorrow,” Mr Lipton said. And “systemic debt problems can lead to much lower economic growth, or a banking crisis. Or both.”

風險還在於，如果企業債務問題得不到迅速解決，可能會演變成一場大危機。利普頓說：“今天是企業債務問題，明天可能就成了系統性債務問題。系統性債務問題可能會導致經濟增長速度大幅下降，或者引起銀行業危機，或者二者同時發生。”