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中国上个季度的外汇储备增幅低于往常，但引发的争论却甚于以往。
中国去年第四季度外汇储备增长404.4亿美元，大大低于登记在案的贸易和投资资金流动规模1,323.3亿美元。其中必有内情。虽然外汇市场大幅波动很可能影响以美元计价的储备价值，但这并不足以解释如此大的偏差。《华尔街日报》此前的一篇报导与普遍的看法一致，即主要原因是第四季度大量资本外流。据经济学家估计，第四季度资本外流规模为700亿-1,400亿美元，但无法根据少量的公开数据确定具体数字。
但中国经济方面的一些知名分析人士提出质疑，华盛顿的彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute of International Economics)的尼古拉斯·拉迪(Nicholas Lardy)便是其中之一。这些分析人士指出这样一个事实：潜在的资本流出规模约为1,000亿美元，和政府向中国农业银行的注资规模十分接近。通过10月底宣布并显然于11月份完成的与政府的交易，中国农业银行摆脱了人民币8,180亿元（约合1,200亿美元）的坏帐。这是巧合吗？拉迪认为很可能不是；因为中国有过利用外汇储备清理国有银行坏帐的先例。
这就意味着中国最近高额储备积累和对人民币汇率造成的上行压力实际上并未发生变化。拉迪在研究所博客上发表的一篇文章中称，如果官方储备参与清理中国农业银行的资产负债表，那么官方对外汇市场的干预程度就要远远高于外汇储备小幅增加所显示的水平。
中国农业银行的确得到过来自外汇储备的部分注资。通过其他救助措施，该行从中国主权财富基金中国投资有限责任公司旗下的中央汇金投资有限责任公司获得190亿美元资金，以补充资本。不过，这部分资金不会影响到去年第四季度的外汇储备。中投公司早就计划将2007年2,000亿美元初始资金中的200亿美元用于中国农业银行的资本结构调整。而且中投公司近几个月的谨慎策略必然令其积累了支付这部分资金的实力，而无需再向外汇储备要钱。
所以问题实际是中国农业银行冲减人民币8,180亿元贷款的资金从何而来，但这个问题并不好回答，因为这家银行一直是中国透明度最低的银行（例如，中国农业银行的网站上对政府救助方案没有给出任何说明）。不过，该行管理人士的确在去年10月份就坏帐处置作出过解释，据本报参加记者招待会的记者说，中国农业银行管理人士明确表示是商务部负责融资，并未动用外汇储备。中国媒体的报导也与这种说法一致。
管理人士称，中国农业银行的坏帐处置方式基本上与2005年中国工商银行股份有限公司的一致。当时工商银行冲减了资产负债表上的坏帐，以特别国债代替。该交易全部以人民币进行，没有动用外汇储备。
我们通过电子邮件与拉迪沟通了上述信息，他也同意这一观点。所以对中国农业银行的注资似乎根本不是问题所在；资本外流的确存在，但上个季度资金大规模外流的原因仍然不清楚。有很多可能的因素，如出口商将外汇兑换为人民币的方式转变、跨国公司将在中国市场的盈利汇回总部等。相关的调查研究仍在继续。
Andrew Batson
（“中国日志”（China Journal）关注全球第一人口大国的发展变化，《华尔街日报》获奖团队数十位记者倾情献稿，Sky Canaves主笔。欢迎读者发送邮件至chinajournal@wsj.com或在下面评论栏中发表评论和建议。）http://chinese.wsj.com/gb/20090119/chj165624.asp?source=UpFeature
＜script language="javascript"＞＜/script＞＜script language="javascript"＞＜/script＞A smaller-than-usual increase in China's foreign-exchange reserves last quarter has created a bigger-than-usual controversy.
The increase in foreign reserves, at $40.44 billion for the fourth quarter, was significantly smaller than the $132.33 billion in recorded trade and investment flows. So something strange is going on. While it's likely that big swings in currency markets probably affected the value of the reserves as reported in U.S. dollars, that doesn't seem to be enough to account for the big moves. The WSJ coverage (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123185843910877367.html) agreed with the consensus view that the main explanation is significant outflows of capital during the fourth quarter. Economists' estimates range from $70 billion to $140 billion, though there's no way to be certain from the minimal public data.
But some very distinguished analysts of the Chinese economy have questioned this scenario, among them Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute of International Economics in Washington. They point to the fact that the scale of the implied outflows, around $100 billion, is very similar to the size of the official bailout of the Agricultural Bank of China, or ABC. The bank was freed from 818 billion yuan (about $120 billion) of bad loans in an official transaction announced at the end of October, and apparently completed in November. Coincidence? Probably not, is Mr. Lardy's view, given that China has in the past used its foreign exchange reserves to clean up bad loans at its state-owned banks.
That would mean that China's recent pattern of huge reserve accumulation and upward pressure on its currency has not in fact changed. 'If official reserves were used to clean up ABC's balance sheet, then it would be the case that official intervention in the foreign exchange market was much greater than suggested by the modest increase in reserves,' Mr. Lardy writes in a post (http://www.petersoninstitute.org/realtime/?p=399) on his institute's blog.
The ABC did get some money that came from the foreign exchange reserves. In another part of the bailout, it received $19 billion (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122600299378906001.html) to replenish its capital from the Central Huijin unit of China Investment Corp., the sovereign wealth fund. However, this money would not have affected the foreign exchange reserves in the fourth quarter. CIC's original funding of $200 billion in 2007 was already planned to cover a recapitalization of ABC to the tune of $20 billion. And CIC's cautious strategy in recent months have certainly left it enough cash to cover the payment, without going back to the reserves for a top-up.
So the question is really how the writeoff of the 818 billion yuan in bad loans was financed, and it's not an easy one to answer, since ABC has long been the least transparent of the Chinese banks. (There's no explanation of the bailout, for instance, on ABC's website http://www.abchina.com/). ABC officials did, however, give an explanation of the bad-loan arrangement last October, and our colleague who was at that briefing says that they made it clear that the Ministry of Finance came up with the funding, not the foreign reserves. Chinese press reports also agree with this account (for an example, see http://www.21cbh.com/HTML/2008/10/23/HTML_OX7QSM9CWQRL.html).
Basically, officials said, the disposal of ABC's bad loans was based on what was done with Industrial & Commercial Bank of China in 2005. Bad assets were taken off ICBC's balance sheet and replaced with special government bonds (for a detailed explanation, see page 74 of ICBC's annual report for 2005 at http://www.icbc-ltd.com/icbc/html/download/nb/2005/2005_e.pdf). That transaction was done entirely in yuan, with no use of the foreign exchange reserves.
We shared this information with Mr. Lardy in an email exchange, and he conceded the point. So it seems that Agricultural Bank of China is not the culprit after all, and the capital outflows are indeed real. But it's still far from clear what accounts for the big movement of capital out of China last quarter. There are many candidates, from a change in how exporters convert foreign currency to yuan, to multinationals sending China profits back to headquarters. The hunt continues.
http://chinese.wsj.com/gb/20090119/chj165624.asp?source=UpFeature
[此贴子已经被作者于2009-1-20 0:10:46编辑过]
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