金融时报

金融时报 In most countries, the revelation that 在多数国家，地方政府银行贷款中有五local governments would default on a fifth of 分之一会违约的消息将令人震惊。但在中国，their bank loans would be greeted with 这样的新闻让人惊喜。 alarm. In China, however, the news came as a pleasant surprise. “The fact that nearly 80 per cent of “近80%的项目至少有一些偿债能力，这those projects have at least some capacity to 个事实相当令人惊讶，”汇丰(HSBC)中国区首service their debt is quite amazing,” said Qu 席经济学家屈宏斌示。 Hongbin, chief China economist at HSBC. Analysts said that their working 分析师们表示，他们曾采用这样的假设，assumption had been that a minimum of 30 即中国地方政府总计7.7万亿元人民币(合per cent of the total Rmb7,700bn ($1,100bn, 1.1万亿美元)的银行贷款中，至少有30%不?875m, ?732m) bank lending to Chinese 太可能得到偿还。这使20%的估计成为相对而local governments was unlikely to be repaid. 言的好消息，即便这只是各银行自己提供的初That made the 20 per cent estimate 步数据，中国银行业监管机构今年还将进行更relatively good news, even if it was only a 为正式的评估。 preliminary figure provided by the banks themselves before a more formal assessment by the banking regulator this year. Such a bleak outlook on local 地方政府的偿债能力面临如此阴暗的前governments' ability to service debt reflected 景，反映了一个事实，即许多贷款投入了根本the fact that many loans were handed out to 无望大举盈利的项目。 projects that were never meant to make large profits. “During the global financial crisis, bank “在全球金融危机期间，中国的银行放lending in China was used as a substitute for 贷被用来代替财政支出，以提振国内生产总值fiscal spending to boost GDP growth and (GDP)增长和创造就业，”屈宏斌表示。“可create jobs,” Mr Qu said. “For the 20 per 能无法偿还的那20%地方政府贷款中，有许多cent of loans to local governments that might 很可能投入了纯粹的公共项目，如修建公not be repaid, a lot of it was probably spent 园或公共厕所，或者植树。” on pure public works projects such as building parks or public toilets or planting trees.” While other countries racked up huge 在其它国家背上巨额赤字为刺激方案埋deficits to pay for stimulus packages, Beijing 单之际，北京方面让政府控制的银行体系先拿was able to delay the final bill for its stimulus 出资金，从而推迟了刺激措施的最终账单。即by getting the state-controlled banking 便是2008年11月宣布的大肆吹嘘的4万亿元system to put up the money first. Even the 人民币刺激方案，也仅包括1.2万亿元人民币much-vaunted Rmb4,000bn stimulus 的中央政府资金，其余资金来自地方政府和银package announced in November 2008 行贷款。 included only Rmb1,200bn of central government money, with the rest coming from local governments and bank loans. Some analysts suggested that if more of 一些分析师提出，如果北京方面的刺激Beijing's stimulus had come from the central 资金有更多来自中央政府预算，那将更为透government budget it would have been more 明，有助于减少浪费和腐败。“如果通过中央transparent, with less waste and corruption. 预算来运作更多投资，他们就不会像后来发生“If they had run more investment through 的那样，让商业银行家扮演政府政策代理人的the central budget they wouldn't have turned 角色，”渣打(Standard Chartered)中国研究commercial bankers into agents of 部主管王志浩(Stephen Green)表示。 government policy in the way they did,” said Stephen Green, head of greater China research at Standard Chartered. “But they didn't really have that luxury “但他们当时并不具有那种奢侈的选because it was an emergency, they had to do 择，因为那是一个紧急情况，他们必须迅速行it quickly and they didn't have the 动，而他们没有现成的机制。” mechanisms in place.” Chinese banks have been transformed 过去10年间，中国各银行已从缺乏清偿in the past decade from insolvent basket 能力的困境机构，转变为就市值和绝对利润额cases to the world's most valuable and 而言全球最有价值和最盈利的银行。这是通过profitable lenders, in terms of market 政府注资、大量剥离不良贷款、改善风险管理、capitalisation and absolute profits. That was 以及部分私有化(在香港和上海证交所上市)achieved through state capital injections, 实现的。但北京方面仍持有各大银行的多数股huge carve-outs of bad loans, better risk 权。因此，当2008年全球金融危机爆发时，management and partial privatisation 政府实质上是下令银行重拾旧习惯，即向政府through stock market listings in Hong Kong 青睐的项目提供资 and Shanghai. But Beijing still owns majority shares in all the big banks. So when the crisis hit in 2008 it essentially ordered them to return to their old habits of handing money to favoured government projects.