应对坏账问题 中国考虑银行债务打包出售

Beijing — China is exploring a new way to grapple with its mounting pile of bad corporate debt, though its top central banker sought on Saturday to dispel worries that the plan would simply shift the burden to other parts of the country’s vast economy.

北京——中国正在探索新办法，以应对不断增长的企业坏账。不过，中国央行负责人在周六试图消除人们的担忧，即这项计划只会把负担转移到中国巨大的经济体中的其他部分。

Under the tentative proposal, Chinese officials would allow banks saddled with growing quantities of bad loans to sell that debt to investors, said Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People’s Bank of China. The goal is to help alleviate one of the major drags on China’s economy, the world’s second largest after the United States’ and a major driver of global growth.

中国人民银行行长周小川表示，在这项初步的提议之下，中国官员将允许身负不断增加的不良贷款的银行将不良贷款出售给投资者。这一举措的目标，是帮助缓解拖累中国经济增长的一个主要问题。中国不仅是仅次于美国的世界第二大经济体，也是全球增长的重要推动力。

But Mr. Zhou and a deputy central bank governor, Pan Gongsheng, said they would take steps to make sure the effort did not create the kind of risk-laden financial products that played a major role in the 2008 global financial crisis. The effort would be modest, regulators would monitor it closely, and mom-and-pop investors would be kept out, they said.

周小川和央行副行长潘功胜称，他们会采取措施，确保这项努力不会产生曾在2008年的全球金融危机中扮演重要角色的那种高风险金融产品。他们表示，这是一项温和的举措，监管部门会密切监督它的进行，而且不会让散户投资者参与。

“There’s no need to exaggerate,” Mr. Zhou said at a news conference held as part of China’s annual legislative session in Beijing. “There’s not certainty that this would be a very big market.”

“不必夸大，”在北京举行一年一度的人民代表大会期间，周小川在新闻发布会上说。“这个市场也不一定是很大的。”

China’s corporate debt has ballooned in recent years during a broader lending-and-spending binge, led by the Chinese government in an attempt to keep the country’s economy humming. China’s total debt now stands at about 2.5 years’ economic output, a level that has raised worries among economists. Much of that is corporate debt, prompting many economists to warn that those loans pose a threat to China’s economic health.

最近几年，为了维持经济快速增长，中国政府主导了一场大规模的借贷消费热潮，中国的企业债正是在这种背景下大幅增加。如今，中国的总债务额大约相当于两年半的经济产出，这样的借贷规模引起了经济学家的担忧。其中有不少是企业债，这促使很多经济学家发出警告，表示这些贷款会对中国经济的健康发展构成威胁。

That lending spree has also led to a major surplus of Chinese steel factories, glassworks and other industrial facilities, dragging down China’s economic performance to its slowest rate in 25 years and casting a pall over the broader global outlook.

无节制的借贷也使中国的钢铁厂、玻璃厂和其他一些工业厂矿出现大量的产能过剩，由此拉低中国的经济表现，使增长率降至25年来的最低点，并给更广泛的全球经济前景蒙上一层阴影。

On paper, China’s banks have some of the world’s lowest loan default rates. But economists inside and outside the country say many banks — in a practice known as “extend and pretend” — do not force companies to pay up or restructure, putting off the problem. That raises concerns that China’s big banks could have considerable amounts of bad loans on their books.

从表面看，中国银行业的贷款违约率在全球属最低之列。但国内外的经济学家们表示，中国的很多银行不会强迫企业清偿贷款或进行重组，而是将问题搁置延后，这种做法称为“债务展期，假装没事”。这让人担心，中国的大型银行账簿上可能已经出现了数额相当可观的不良贷款。

The program sketched by the officials on Saturday followed reports in recent days that as the economy slows, some Chinese companies failing to pay back loans would be given reprieves because the banks would be allowed to convert that debt into shares of those companies. But the central bank officials did not directly address that proposal. On Thursday, a heavily indebted Chinese shipbuilding company revealed that it would issue equity to creditors instead of repaying $2.17 billion of outstanding loans.

就在官方于周六提出这项计划几天前，媒体报道，随着中国经济放缓，一些无法偿还贷款的企业将能得到暂时的解救，因为银行将允许它们把欠债转换成企业股份。但中央银行的官员并没有对这种说法做出直接回应。上周四，一家负债累累的中国造船企业对外披露，它将向债权人发行股票，而非偿还140亿元人民币的未偿贷款。

Some experts are skeptical that such a program would resolve the problem. “Using shares to pay overdue loans could help banks temporarily shore up their balance sheets, but it could cause greater difficulties down the road,” said Ning Zhu, a finance professor at the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance.

一些专家对这项计划能否解决问题表示怀疑。“用股份偿付过期贷款，或许能帮助银行暂时改善资产负债表，但它可能会在接下来导致更大的困难，”上海交通大学上海高级金融学院金融学教授朱宁说。

Mr. Zhou indicated that under the proposal described on Saturday, the bad debt would be sold to institutional investors rather than being held by the banks. China already allows this practice — known as securitization — so banks and other financial institutions can sell off existing loans, freeing up capital for new business. But the central bankers’ latest comments suggested that the practice was being refined to focus on nonperforming loans.

周小川表示，在周六公布的那项提议之下，不良贷款将被卖给机构投资者，而非由银行继续持有。中国之前就已经允许采取这种称为“证券化”的举措，让银行等金融机构得以出售现存贷款，释放资金开展新业务。但央行正副行长的最新言论表明，这项举措只是针对未履约贷款。

“Banks are positive about securitization,” Mr. Zhou said. “If some assets can be packaged and sold off, they can adjust their balance sheets.” He said that because the loans sold off would be troubled, they would fetch prices below their face value.

“银行有积极性要做证券化，”周小川说。“如果把一部分资产能够打包卖出去的话，可以调整他的资产负债表。”他表示，因为售出的是有问题的贷款，所以定价会低于资产的名义价格。

Mr. Zhou and Mr. Pan stressed that the program would be modest at first and absorb lessons from the 2008 financial crisis. China’s new debt products would be kept simple, Mr. Pan said.

周小川和潘功胜强调，这个项目一开始会比较谨慎，而且会吸取2008年金融危机的一些教训。潘功胜表示，他们会要求这种新债务产品在设计上简单明了。

“This is just a pilot,” Mr. Pan said. “We’ve selected a small number of major financial institutions with quite high management standards to develop trials, and the credit involved in the initial trials is not large.”

“它只是试点，”潘功胜说。“我们挑选了少数管理水平比较高的大型金融机构开展试点，而且初期试点的额度也不大。”

Shang Fulin, the head of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, said at a separate news conference on Saturday that the trial effort to sell off bad debt was needed to ensure that more bank loans flowed into supporting the real economy, rather than turning over old loans.

中国银监会主席尚福林在周六举行的另一场新闻发布会上表示，出售不良贷款的措施是必要的，它可以确保银行有更多资金贷款给企业，支持实体经济发展，而非用来填补旧账。

“Our total volume of loans is quite adequate, but the speed of turnover of loans has been falling year after year,” Mr. Shang said.

“我们现在贷款的总量是比较充裕的，但是贷款的周转速度在逐年下降，”尚福林说。