中国上调利率, 对抗通胀
原文: 选自英国>
译者: 爱尔兰都柏林大学 赖小琪
China’s tight liquidity just got a little tighter. At the end of May, Goldman Sachs’ financial conditions index – a blend of interbank rates, single-A corporate bond yields, the trade-weighted currency, and equities – was nudging the same levels as August 2008, consistent with a determined tightening. Since then, a surge in short-dated interbank rates above longer-maturity contracts has been accompanied by confirmation of a slump in renminbi loan growth, down almost a fifth in May, year-on-year. Just when the nation seemed to be crying out for a little liquidity relief, then, the People’s Bank obliged on Wednesday with a quarter-point increase in one-year interest rates, effective on Thursday.
中国原本紧缩的流动性变得更加紧缩. 五月末, 高盛金融状况指数(该指数是对银行间同业拆借利率, A级公司债券收益率, 贸易加权汇率以及股票价格的综合评估)与去年八月的水平趋同, 同时也与坚定的紧缩政策相一致. 自那时起, 短期的银行间拆借利率飙升, 高于较长期的合同利率. 与此同时, 人民币的货款增长率大减, 5月份同比下降近五分之一. 正当举国上下都急切要求流动性增强之际, 中国人民银行于周三宣布年利率上调25个基本点, 从周四开始实行新利率.
The problem, as ever, is inflation. Despite Premier Wen Jiabao’s recent assurances to this newspaper that domestic policies had “worked,” and that “price rises [would] be firmly under control this year,” June’s consumer price inflation numbers – due to be reported in the coming days – are expected to be significantly higher than May’s. A recent survey of banks and brokers by publisher Caixin put the June index rise at 6.3 per cent, up from 5.5 per cent in May.
一如以往, 问题的关键在于通胀. 尽管温家宝总理最近曾向本报表示中国的宏观调控政策已经见效, 物价会在今年得到有效的控制, 但是六月的消费者物价指数(未来几天内会公布)预期会比五月份高出许多. 出版商财新最近对银行家和经纪人所做的一项调查表明, 六月份的消费者物价指数将达到6.3%, 远高出五月份的5.5%.
That led to a predictable “risk off” spasm in other world markets. Investors are alarmed by any development that appears to raise the chances of a Chinese hard landing.
正如预料中的一样, 这导致了全球其他市场出现了 “规避风险” 的痉挛反应. 投资者对任何可能提高中国经济硬着陆的进展都感到震惊.
But, as UBS notes, an inverted yield curve is not necessarily a harbinger of doom in China, as it can be elsewhere. At the long end, yields do not mean much, as corporates and households tend to fund themselves at much higher interest rates through bank loans, rather than bonds. And at the short end, rates jump all over the place, influenced more by the amount of money in the banking system (a function of the reserve requirement ratio) than by the benchmark price. Yet the obvious policy discomfort shows that Beijing is experiencing the same problems as everyone else. Providing monetary stimulus is the easy bit; withdrawing it, much trickier.
然而, 正如瑞士银行所表示的那样, 反转的收益率曲线并不能像用在别的地方那样用来预示中国经济前景黯谈. 对于长期债券而言, 收益率并不是非常重要, 因为公司和家庭投资者倾向于更高利率的银行贷款融资, 而不是通过债券来实现融资需求. 从短期债券来看, 利率全面飙升, 这除了受到基准价格的影响外, 更多是受到银行系统的资金量(银行存款准备金率的函数)的影响. 但是就目前显而易见的政策困境来看, 中国与别的国家一样经历着相同的困难. 采用货币刺激政策则轻而易举, 而撤销这些政策则困难多了. |
