不必为中国银行担忧？

读读任何西方任何经济金融方面的报纸杂志网站，说起中国债务，尤其是企业债和其对中国银行的压力，不说马上崩溃，也说危机重重，中国面临的局面是前所未有，大家都无良策。比较认可的方式是短期内接受巨大损失，接受剧痛，做大幅的改革，来换取过度和长期健康稳定的发展。

 

国内的主要机构，保证媒体，除了《财新》说的比较值，大家要么不说，要么紧跟中央，正面为主。偶然国内财政部，尤其是央行的大头出来对外解释，因为不好说大话，谈及一些实情，大家也是三言两语带过，不带细节。

 

我的印象是国内企业目前的状况已经到了不能再坏的程度，再恶化的话，影响习李的地位。不过社会动乱市场崩溃的可能性是不太可能的，一旦出事儿，放下面子，也能应付的过去。

 

所以见到西方有人出头给中国银行界辩护，觉得不简单。

 

作者是彼得森国际经济研究所研究员，他的观点如此：

一、中国还没到最危险的时候，有极高私人存款，别紧张

二、债务主要是国内债（注：美元债务也不少，但相对比例低），而且企业两年前就开始担心，逐渐偿还，现在就更少了

三、国内赖账的本事很高（我的语气），y企业和银行万不得已能达成重整协议（就是先不还，延期再说），没解决问题，但买来了时间，有喘气的余地

 

如果李克强的改革有效，大家说不定又活过来了。

 

 

《金融时报》专文

No need to panic, China’s banks are in pretty good shape
The country is not vulnerable to a financial crisis such as Asia in 1997, writes Nicholas Lardy

 

China Everbright Bank Co. rose as much as 19 percent on its debut in Shanghai after completing the nation's second-largest initial public offering this year, as the stock market recovers from a three-month slump

The extraordinarily rapid rise of debt in China, particularly in the corporate sector, has given rise to fears that the country may be unable to avoid a banking crisis that would slow its growth and have substantial negative spillovers on the global economy. This fear is based on recent estimates by the International Monetary Fund and some investment banks that a substantial portion of new lending in recent years has gone to state-owned companies producing oversupplied goods where profits have turned ­negative.

In fact, while lending more to corporates unable to pay interest and principal on previous loans means financial risks are clearly rising, it is likely that China is years away from a potential banking crisis, providing it with a window to slow the growth of credit to a sustainable level. A key reason for this judgment is that while the ratio of debt to gross domestic product is quite elevated, China also enjoys a high rate of national savings. The level of debt a country can sustain depends significantly on the share of domestic savings in GDP.

Second, China’s debt build-up is almost entirely in domestic currency. Local companies have been paying down their foreign currency debt since the third quarter of 2014 and it now accounts for only 5 per cent of domestic debt. In contrast, a recent study of other emerging markets found that the median foreign currency debt as a share of total debt is four times the Chinese share. Moreover, China remains a large net creditor to the rest of the world. Thus, the country is not vulnerable to a financial crisis such as the one in Asia in 1997, which was precipitated by a refusal of foreign lenders to roll over their credit to Asian corporates.

Third, banking crises almost always begin with problems on the liability side of bank balance sheets. But Chinese banks’ liabilities are overwhelmingly deposits, which are very sticky. Bank reliance on wholesale funding is minimal. Thus, loans plus off-balance sheet assets are roughly equal to deposits, far from the 120-150 per cent ratios frequently seen in countries before the onset of banking crises. In any case, the central bank has substantial tools to deal with potential bank runs. For example, the required reserve ratio imposed on banks is currently 17 per cent. This could be cut with hugely positive effects on bank liquidity.

Fears of an impending banking crisis are often based on the assertion that China’s banks are far weaker than advertised. Given the huge acceleration of credit growth beginning with the global financial crisis, non-performing loan ratios in the 1 to 2 per cent range are not credible on this view. But this argument does not recognise that some banks have been aggressively writing off NPLs, making low reported NPL ratios more plausible. For example, Citic Bank and Bank of Communications in the first half of 2015 disposed of 75 and 30 per cent, respectively, of their year-end 2014 non-performing loan balances. More generally, the average provision coverage ratio of Chinese banks is about 150 per cent of reported NPLs.

Is it likely that weakened banks will ultimately be forced dramatically to slow their extension of credit, leading to a lengthy period of slow growth? This was the pattern in Japan, which some argue China is doomed to follow. But in the 1990s, when excess lending to poorly performing state-owned enterprises led Chinese banks to the brink of insolvency, the government initiated a massive recapitalisation programme that allowed the institutions to continue to lend, supporting the strong growth achieved in the first decade of this century. This was very unlike the situation in Japan, where the authorities for a decade refused to recognise weak bank balance sheets.

In addition, Chinese banks have far less exposure to poorly performing state-owned corporates than in the 1990s. In the mid-1990s, before the recapitalisation of the banking system, loans to SOEs accounted for 62 per cent of all renminbi loans of banks and other financial institutions. Today, that share has fallen to 30 per cent, largely because banks have increasingly lent to private companies and to households. The former earn an average return on assets that is two to three times that of state companies and the latter have relatively strong balance sheets.

To reduce the risks that are accumulating in the financial sector, the authorities must move aggressively to curtail the flow of credit to chronically unprofitable, mostly state-owned corporates. The central government’s campaign to close down these so-called zombie companies is already under way, but not surprisingly it is meeting resistance at the local level.

This resistance must be overcome and the central government must also deal with the existing stock of bad assets by some combination of accelerated write-offs and securitisation of under­performing bank assets and even partial recapitalisation of the weakest financial institutions.

The writer is Anthony M Solomon Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute

 

 

 

《华尔街日报》专家观点
China’s Looming Currency Crisis
Mass capital outflows continue despite stymied Beijing’s efforts to boost the economy. Expect the yuan to tumble.

The Chinese are moving record amounts of money overseas or purchasing foreign companies and assets

By Anne Stevenson-Yang and Kevin Dougherty
March 14, 2016

After initial declines in the Chinese market to start the year, the past few weeks have seen signs of what some would call a rebound. Lending in China rose by 67% in January, iron-ore prices initially rallied by 64% and housing sales in the top four markets surged. The yuan gained back half of the nearly 7% it had lost against the dollar since November, sending hedge funds that had shorted on the currency running for cover. And yet there remains no sign of life in the underlying Chinese economy.

More than $800 billion in credit that had been pushed into the economy in January failed to boost production or increase sales. Producer prices remained negative, dropping 5.1% in January-February, while the manufacturing PMI fell to 48 in February from 48.4 in January, indicating worsening contraction. That’s because the rally was the result of a coordinated government effort to restore confidence in the China Dream of limitless growth at home and glory abroad. The market, apparently, isn’t so easily convinced.

From hiding capital outflows to propping up real-estate values, manipulating futures markets and squeezing short-sellers of the yuan, Chinese authorities have been trying to bring back the old, quasisuperstitious belief in Beijing’s omnipotence. But the political desperation behind these efforts betrays a different story: that an impending currency crisis is a signal of the dream’s undoing.

That’s why in China getting money out of the country is now the major preoccupation of both families and corporations. Risk-averse individuals are trading out of the wealth-management products they used to buy for 10% yields and moving their money to safety in the U.S., Australia, Canada and Europe. Chinese companies are making extravagant bids for overseas assets such as General Electric ’s appliance division, the equipment maker Terex Corp. , the near-dead Norwegian web browser Opera, the Swiss pesticides group Syngenta, technology distributor Ingram Micro and even the Chicago Stock Exchange.

In the first six weeks of 2016, Chinese firms committed to spending $82 billion on such acquisitions. Last year saw nearly $1 trillion in capital outflows, including a decline of $512.66 billion in the foreign reserves. Although no one is sure how much of China’s reserves are liquid and available, it’s safe to say that, at this rate, China can’t afford capital flight for more than another year.

One way to stem the crisis would be through depreciation. That would be sound policy for the people of China, but it’s a dreaded last resort for a leadership that wants, more than jobs for its people, to bolster buying power and save political face overseas. Yet history shows that holding the line on the currency is a losing strategy. Tightened liquidity causes more pain to the economy and simply delays the inevitable.

National leaders, when faced with a disorderly adjustment, will inevitably resist markets, promise major structural changes (which are then slow to materialize), inject liquidity into financial markets and insist that everything is under control. But these measures rarely work and in fact have never worked when imbalances are as severe as they are in China today.

In other countries, currency crises usually followed a sudden and irreversible loss of confidence. The Asian Tigers were booming and then fell apart rapidly. Same in Russia. China faces the added difficulty of having little institutional memory and few tools to manage the economy in a time of capital scarcity. And there is no sign that capital-outflow pressure will ease.

And so a painful adjustment will be unavoidable: Property values will decline by an estimated 50% from the current reported average of $142 per square foot in tier-two cities, roughly equivalent to the national average in the U.S., where incomes are much higher. (Current price-to-income ratios in China are generally over 20, while the U.S. averages about three.) Excess industrial capacity will shut down. People will lose their jobs.

But Beijing still has a choice: Either let the yuan take some of the pressure of adjustment, or let all of it fall on the domestic market. Placed in such stark terms, a currency adjustment seems inevitable.

A likely depreciation of at least 15% against the U.S. dollar would take the renminbi back to where it was on the eve of the global financial crisis, before speculative capital inflows flooded into China and drove up the currency’s value. This would be a “reset event” globally. All forecasts for inflation/deflation, interest rates, currency crosses, growth and commodity prices would have to be ripped up and recalculated. It would likely lead to an emerging-markets crash. As a percentage of global gross domestic product, China today is nearly twice the size of Asia (excluding Japan) in 1997.

Commodities, emerging-market equities and multinationals with exposure to China have already started to realize significant losses. Soon major corrections will reach other assets boosted by the Chinese economy, such as property values in Hong Kong and Singapore. When this unfolds, U.S. government bonds may be the world’s only safe haven. The end of the China story is at hand.

 

 

《巴伦杂志》
Why Beijing’s Troubles Could Get a Lot Worse
Bank rate cuts and anticorruption campaign are unlikely to stave off woes, says Anne Stevenson-Yang

By Jonathan R. Laing, December 6, 2014

 

《澳大利亚广播公司》
State of Chinese Economy: interview with Anne Stevenson Yang

27 Apr 2016