中国再现三角债问题 Unpaid bills add to China debt problems as receivables mount

Times have changed for Yu Xingzhi since China’s economic boom years. Despite the slowing economy, sales at Shanghai Caison Color Material Chemical, are holding up. The trouble is, her customers — garment manufacturers and packaging producers buying her dyes and inks — are taking more time to pay for what they buy.

对虞幸芝来说，与中国经济高速发展的时期相比，时代不同了。尽管经济不断放缓，但上海彩生色料化学股份有限公司(Shanghai Caison Color Material Chemical)的销售保持得还行。麻烦在于，她的客户——服装生产商和包装用品生产商——支付货款的周期越来越长。

“Receivables are the unavoidable problem for traditional manufacturers. If you don’t accept receivables, you have no business. It’s standard industry practice, even though no one likes it,” says Ms Yu, the dye maker’s general manager.

身为这家染料生产企业总经理的虞幸芝表示：“对传统制造商来说，应收账款是不可避免的问题。如果你不接受应收账款，你就接不到业务。这是标准的行业做法，即便没有人喜欢它。”

It is a vicious circle and one threatening the health of the economy. Ever longer delays in bills being paid is creating a chain of squeezed cashflow and debt that runs from large state owned enterprises through to smaller suppliers and even employees struggLing to pay their own bills.

这是一个恶性循环，而且有可能危及经济健康。付款周期越来越长，正在形成连环的现金流紧张和债务，影响各类企业，从大型国企到较小的供应商都不能幸免，甚至波及难以支付个人账单的员工。

Listed companies had to wait a median 70 days to receive payment last year, the longest delay in 14 years, as cash flows tightened amid slack final demand. That compares with a median 60 days in 2014 and 46 days in 2011, according to Wind Information, a Chinese financial database.

随着最终需求疲弱导致现金流紧张，上市公司去年收到应收账款的中位数时间达到70天，是14年来最长的拖延。中国金融数据提供商万得资讯(Wind Information)的数据显示，2014年和2011年的收款中位数时间分别是60天和46天。

Ms Yu says that an increasing share of customers now insist on paying with a bankers’ acceptance rather than cash. Similar to a post-dated cheque, bankers acceptances are a kind of IOU from a company and its bank. Ms Xu says that a few years ago, 5 to 10 per cent of her sales were paid this way, but that has now risen to 20 to 30 per cent. Most cannot be cashed for 90 or 180 days.

虞幸芝表示，现在坚持用银行承兑汇票（而非现金）付款的客户比例越来越高。与远期支票类似，银行承兑汇票是公司及其银行签发的一种借据。虞幸芝表示，数年前，5%-10%的客户使用这种方式付款，但现在这一比例已升至20%-30%。银行承兑汇票大多要等90天或180天才能兑付。

Nor does the problem end with Ms Yu. “We have no choice but to pass the delays upstream (to our suppliers),” she says.

问题也没有在虞幸芝这里结束。她说：“我们别无选择，只能向上游（我们的供应商）延迟付款。”

China’s supply chain is more dense than in Europe or the US, and often concentrated in localities — meaning bills that go unpaid for months have a knock-on effect that can quickly rip through entire industrial ecosystems.

中国供应链的密集程度超过欧洲或者美国，而且往往集中于某些地区，这意味着数月收不到货款就会产生连锁反应，迅速传导至整个产业生态系统。

Thus when Shenzhen Eycom Technology Co, which makes hardware and software for mobile phones, held up payments two of its Shenzhen-listed vendors were forced to warn investors in stock exchange filings. In Nanchang city, in China’s southern Jiangxi province, a small manufacturer of medical-grade plastic blamed late payments from customers for its inability to pay Rmb1.1m in salaries to more than 120 employees last September, prompting a fine from the local labour bureau, according to local media.

因此当制造手机软硬件产品的深圳亿通科技(Shenzhen Eycom Technology Co)拖欠货款时，它的两家在深圳上市的供应商被迫在提交给交易所的监管申报中向投资者发出警告。据当地媒体报道，在中国江西省南昌市，一家生产医用塑料的小型制造商去年9月将其拖欠120多名员工110万元人民币工资、招致当地劳动局罚款归咎于客户拖欠货款。

The woes of the Shenzhen group, which operates in a notoriously competitive and low-margin industry, illustrate what economists say is the crux of the problem: weak final demand, especially in low-end manufacturing sectors wracked with overcapacity. Companies must whittle down inventories before they have enough cash to pay suppliers.

深圳亿通科技处于一个竞争激烈且利润微薄的行业。该公司的困境表明了经济学家所说的问题症结所在：最终需求疲弱，尤其是在深受产能过剩困扰的低端制造业部门。企业在有足够资金支付供应商之前，必须先削减库存。

But the build-up of receivables also reflects bottlenecks in the financial system. China’s central bank has eased monetary policy substantially since late 2014. But looser money often fails to reach smaller, privately owned businesses that struggle most in paying their bills on time.

不过，应收账款的累积也反映出了金融系统中的瓶颈。自2014年末以来，中国央行大幅放宽了货币政策。但是，释放的资金往往无法流到那些最难以及时支付账单的小型私有企业手中。

“It looks like liquidity is very ample, but a lot of that is being used to help the real estate sector re-finance. It's not circulating widely through the economy,” says Shao Yu, economist at Oriental Securities in Shanghai.

“流动性看起来非常充足，但是其中很大一部分都用于帮助房地产板块再融资了。资金并未在整个经济体内部广泛流通起来，”上海东方证券的经济学家邵宇表示。

The banks, however, sniff opportunity in the rising stock of receivables: both financing and securitising payments. Financing is dominated by the Big 4 state-owned “bad banks”, which once exclusively purchased non-performing loans from commercial banks but have now diversified into other distressed assets.

然而，银行在不断累积的应收账款中嗅到了商机：融资和证券化支付。融资方面由四大国有“坏账银行”主导。它们曾经只收购商业银行的不良贷款，但如今其业务已经延伸至其他困境资产。

At China Huarong Asset Management, the country’s biggest bad bank, nearly two thirds of newly acquired assets, or Rmb147bn, were from non-banks in 2015. Non-bank assets were “mainly” corporate receivables, Huarong said in its annual report. Following years of pilot projects, in February, eight government agencies led by the People's Bank of China issued policy guidelines that pledged to “accelerate securitisation of receivables” in order to “revitalise the stock of industrial assets”.

在中国最大的坏账银行——中国华融资产管理公司(China Huarong Asset Management)，2015新收购的资产中有近三分之二（1470亿元人民币）来自非银行机构。华融在其年报中表示，非银行资产“主要”是企业应收账款。在进行多年的试点项目后，以中国人民银行为首的8个部委在今年2月公布了政策指导建议，承诺“加快推进应收账款证券化”以“盘活工业企业存量资产”。

Many Hong Kong exporters have adopted a 30-40-30 structure to keep cashflows running, whereby customers make partial payment before, during and after shipment.

香港很多出口企业采用30-40-30支付结构来保持现金流周转，即客户在货物发运前、运输途中以及交付后进行分批付款。

Willy Lin, managing director of Hong Kong-based Milo’s Knitwear — which exports upmarket China-made clothes to Europe — says he and other Hong Kong exporters are “playing safe” with payment terms. He typically uses a 30-40-30 structure in which customers make partial payment before, during and after shipment.

向欧洲出口中国制造高档服装的香港美罗针织厂(Milo's Knitwear)的董事总经理林宣武(Willy Lin)表示，他和香港其他出口商在付款方面“求稳”。他通常利用30-40-30结构，即客户在货物发运前、运输途中以及交付后分批付款。

Mr Lin says that high-end manufacturers, whose customers cannot easily switch to a competitor, have more bargaining power, but that he is aware many smaller Chinese manufacturers face increasing difficulty.

林宣武称，高端制造商的客户无法转投竞争厂商，因此它们拥有更大议价能力，但据他了解，中国很多小型制造商日益面临困难。

“The problem is quite common in mainland private enterprises because many of the companies rely on guanxi (connections) and nepotism to make a business deal. A deal usually comes from friend of a friend or someone’s relatives,” says Mr Lin.

“这个问题在内地私有企业中间相当普遍，因为很多公司依靠关系和裙带关系做生意。交易对象通常是朋友的朋友或某人的亲戚，”林宣武称。