Local debt in China 中国的地方债务

Local debt in China 中国的地方债务

A property slowdown sheds light on a huge hidden-debt problem

第一段：

When officials in the southern city of Liuzhou began a routine auction of parcels of land in June, they found few takers. Only one of five plots received a bid; the rest went unsold. As in many cities across China, a downturn in the property market has meant less demand for the land on which apartment towers are built.

今年6月，当南方城市柳州的官员开始例行的土地拍卖时，几乎没有买家。五个地块中只有一个中标;其余的未售出。与中国许多城市一样，房地产市场的低迷意味着对公寓楼用地的需求减少。

第二段：

That is bad news for local governments, which rely on the sales for the bulk of their revenues. It is also a troubling sign for the holders of bonds issued by local-government financing vehicles (LGFVs), the half-public, half-corporate concoctions that have become a cornerstone of Chinese development. Cities’ land-sale revenues are often used to repay these bonds. After the auctions flopped in Liuzhou, rating agencies downgraded two of the city’s LGFVs on fears that the government would struggle to service their debts.

这对地方政府来说是个坏消息，因为它们的大部分收入都依赖于销售。对于地方政府融资平台(lgfv)发行的债券持有人来说，这也是一个令人不安的信号。lgfv是一种半公半企的混合物，已成为中国发展的基石。城市的土地销售收入经常被用来偿还这些债券。柳州的拍卖失败后，评级机构下调了该市两家地方政府融资平台的评级，担心政府难以偿还债务。

第三段：

LGFVs are one of China’s oddest financial innovations. In the mid-1990s the central government implemented budget laws to stop local bureaucrats building up massive debts. In response, regional governments crafted LGFVs as a workaround. The vehicles, which number in the thousands, became important drivers of economic growth, helping build bridges, homes and roads. They also became one of China’s biggest kinds of liabilities, building up some 53trn yuan ($8.3trn, or 52% of GDP) in onshore and offshore debts, according to Goldman Sachs, a bank. Although such borrowing does not appear on public balance-sheets, local authorities are responsible for paying it back. The runaway debts now threaten to throw the financial system into turmoil.

地方政府融资平台是中国最奇特的金融创新之一。上世纪90年代中期，中央政府实施了预算法，以阻止地方官僚积累巨额债务。作为回应，地方政府制定了地方政府融资平台作为一种变通办法。成千上万的汽车成为经济增长的重要推动力，帮助修建桥梁、房屋和道路。根据高盛银行的数据，它们也成为中国最大的债务种类之一，在岸和离岸债务累积了约53万亿元人民币(8.3万亿美元，占GDP的52%)。尽管这些借款并不出现在公共资产负债表上，但地方政府有责任偿还。如今，失控的债务有可能让金融体系陷入动荡。

第四段：

The central government has spent years trying to reform China’s shadow financial system, but debts that are hidden off balance-sheets have been slow to shrink. Take shadow banking, for instance. Although it has declined as a share of banking-system assets, outstanding shadow loans remain high, at 57.6trn yuan at the end of September. Similarly, a municipal-bond market now lets cities and provinces raise funds. Yet LGFV debts at the end of 2020 still exceeded outstanding central and local government bonds combined.

中央政府花了数年时间试图改革中国的影子金融体系，但隐藏在资产负债表之外的债务一直在缓慢收缩。以影子银行为例。尽管影子贷款占银行系统资产的比例有所下降，但影子贷款余额仍处于高位，截至9月底为57.6万亿元。类似地，一个市级债券市场现在允许各省市筹集资金。然而，截至2020年底，地方政府融资平台的债务仍超过了中央和地方政府债券的余额总和。

第五段：

Many LGFVs make meagre earnings on the bridges, roads and water systems they build. Officials used to be able to make up the shortfall with land-sale revenues, but this is becoming harder. In a round of sales this year for 22 of China’s biggest cities, the premium fetched on parcels was just 4.7% above the government’s reserve price, compared with 16.7% earlier in the year, according to Enodo Economics, a research firm. The default of Evergrande, a developer with $300bn in liabilities, and wider malaise in the property industry means demand for land could continue to suffer. New home prices fell for a third consecutive month in November, according to figures published on December 15th.

许多地方政府融资平台在他们建造的桥梁、道路和供水系统上赚取微薄的收入。过去，官员们可以通过卖地收入来弥补差额，但现在这变得越来越困难。研究公司Enodo Economics的数据显示，在今年中国22个最大城市的一轮拍卖中，地块溢价仅比政府的底价高出4.7%，而今年早些时候这一比例为16.7%。背负3000亿美元债务的开发商恒大(Evergrande)的违约，以及房地产行业的普遍低迷，意味着土地需求可能继续受到影响。12月15日公布的数据显示，11月新房价格连续第三个月下跌。

第六段：

No LGFV has yet defaulted on a bond. But many market-watchers, such as Larry Hu of Macquarie, a bank, believe it is only a matter of time. The vehicles will face repayments of offshore bonds of $32.2bn in 2022, up from $26.9bn in 2021, reckons Nomura, a Japanese bank. Many of them issue short-term debt simply to pay off other maturities. Guangxi Liuzhou Dongcheng, an LGFV that was downgraded by S&P, a rating agency, in October, had 25.7bn yuan ($4bn) in short-term maturities, for instance. An average of 60% of LGFV bond issuance has gone not to new growth-generating projects but towards paying off maturing debts in 2020 and 2021.

地方政府融资平台尚未出现债券违约。但许多市场观察人士，如麦格理银行的Larry Hu，认为这只是时间问题。据日本野村证券(Nomura)估计，这些工具将在2022年面临322亿美元的离岸债券偿付，高于2021年的269亿美元。许多银行发行短期债券只是为了偿还其他到期债务。例如，去年10月被评级机构标普(s&p;P)下调信用评级的地方政府融资平台广西柳州东城(LGFV)持有257亿元人民币(合40亿美元)短期债券。地方政府融资平台发行的债券中，平均有60%没有用于新的增长项目，而是用于偿还2020年和2021年到期的债务。

第七段：

Many local governments appear to be preparing for a financial storm. Liuzhou has used an estimated 20bn yuan in public funds to make up a capital shortfall at Dongtong Investment and Development Group, a vehicle that was downgraded in August by Fitch, another rating agency. An LGFV in the city of Chongqing defaulted on bankers’ acceptance bills in March. Subsidiaries of a provincial vehicle in Guangxi have gone bankrupt. Provincial governments in Jiangsu and Yunnan have issued guidelines calling for collapsing LGFVs to go into formal bankruptcy instead of being hidden under more debt.

许多地方政府似乎正在为一场金融风暴做准备。柳州已经动用了大约200亿元的公共资金来弥补东通投资发展集团(Dongtong Investment and Development Group)的资本缺口。今年8月，另一家评级机构惠誉(Fitch)下调了东通投资发展集团的评级。今年3月，重庆市一家地方政府融资平台拖欠银行承兑汇票。广西某省级汽车子公司已破产。江苏和云南的省政府已经发布指导意见，要求破产的地方政府融资平台正式破产，而不是隐藏在更多的债务之下。

第八段：

Such reforms will not come easily. The value of onshore LGFV bonds stood at 11.9trn yuan in June, six times those issued by developers and a tenth of China’s onshore-bond market (see chart). A slight shift in sentiment towards the government’s implicit guarantee for LGFVs could roil markets. This was highlighted by the caution around “Document No. 15”, an internal circular issued by the banking regulator in July, which told lenders to cut access to working-capital loans for some LGFVs. If upheld, the new rules could have caused a cash crunch for the vehicles—similar to the squeeze that brought down Evergrande. But they were quickly abandoned. Letting LGFVs fail is a line the central government is not yet willing to cross.

这样的改革并不容易。6月份，在岸地方政府融资平台的债券价值为11.9万亿元，是开发商发行债券的6倍，是中国在岸债券市场的1 / 10(见图表)。对政府为地方政府融资平台提供隐性担保的看法稍有转变，可能会扰乱市场。这一点在银监会7月发布的内部通知第15号文件的警告中得到了突显。该通知要求银行减少对一些地方政府融资平台的流动资金贷款。如果这项新规定得到支持，可能会导致这些汽车出现现金短缺，类似于导致恒大破产的那种情况。但它们很快就被抛弃了。让地方政府融资平台倒闭，是中央政府目前还不愿跨越的一条红线。

第九段：

The situation illustrates the market-distorting power of missed reforms. Many other sectors, such as property and non-core state-owned enterprises, are no longer seen as backed by the central government. The fact that the authorities did not decisively end their implicit support for LGFVs earlier this year has led many asset managers in China to consider them safe. LGFV bond yields have fallen towards those on government bonds. Funds have poured in. “They are becoming a haven,” says Mr Hu. They should be anything but.

这种情况表明，错过的改革会扭曲市场。许多其它行业，如房地产和非核心国有企业，已不再被视为受到中央政府的支持。今年早些时候，中国政府没有果断结束对地方政府融资平台的隐性支持，这一事实导致中国许多资产管理公司认为，地方政府融资平台是安全的。地方政府融资平台的债券收益率已跌向政府债券。资金大量涌入。胡士泰表示，它们正成为一个避风港。他们不应该是。