保險公司成爲中國新影子銀行

The ever ingenious Chinese financial system has developed a new kind of Shadow Bank – insurance companies.

一向富有創造性的中國金融體系已發展出一種新型的影子銀行——保險公司。

China’s $586bn stimulus package in 2009 caused a flurry of lending through the country’s financial arteries. Some of this money ended up leaking out of the banks into unofficial channels, including the country’s state banks and the giant provincially-owned pseudo banks called Trust Companies. By the end of 2014, these off-balance sheet loans accounted for 18 per cent of all financing, up from less than 2 per cent a decade earlier.

中國2008年推出的5860億美元的一攬子經濟刺激計劃，在中國的整個金融動脈中引發了一陣信貸風潮。其中一部分資金最終從銀行流入非正式渠道，包括龐大的省屬僞銀行——信託公司。到2014年年底，這些表外貸款佔融資總額的比例達到了18%，而10年前該比例還不到2%。

However, as this flood of cash poured into the economy, mainly into the property industry, it caused a tremendous asset bubble, and Beijing became nervous about the potential for the a collapse if all the air burst out of the market at the same time.

然而，涌入經濟、尤其是房地產行業的大量資金，造成了巨大的資產泡沫。北京方面也開始擔心如果市場中的所有泡沫同時破裂會引發崩盤。

So, in 2014 the regulators including the China Banking Regulatory Commission and the People’s Bank of China put in place stricter rules about shadow loans. As a result, in the first two months of this year, bank loans rose to 77 per cent of total financing, up from 64 per cent a year earlier. It looked like shadow finance was on the wane.

因此，中國銀監會(CBRC)和中國央行等監管機構在2014年出臺了更嚴格的影子貸款相關規則。這使今年頭兩個月銀行貸款在融資總額中的比例從去年同期的64%升至77%。影子金融看上去正在走下坡路。

Ah, but not so fast. China’s slippery financial system is not so easily tied down. Egged on by provincial leaders desperate to keep the wheels of GDP growth rolling forward and cash-strapped property developers, other institutions have jumped into the fray. And one of the biggest are Chinese insurance companies.

但事情的發展不會這麼快。想要約束中國棘手的金融體系並非易事。在極力保持國內生產總值(GDP)增長滾滾向前的省級領導，和資金短缺的房地產開發商的雙重推動下，其他的機構也紛紛加入這場亂局。其中最大的參與者之一就是中國的保險公司。

By the end of January 2015, alternative investments surged 66.4 per cent year-over-year to Rmb2.3tn, accounting for a whopping 24 per cent of total insurance investments. In contrast, investments in bank deposits and bonds grew no more than 9 per cent, and even money socked away in China’s booming stock market rose only 17 per cent – one-quarter as fast as in alternative investments.

到2015年1月末，保險公司的另類投資同比飆漲66.4%，至2.3萬億元人民幣，佔保險公司投資總額的比例達到了24%。相較之下，保險公司對銀行存款和債券的投資漲幅不超過9%，甚至投向中國暴漲的股市的資金也只增長了17%，僅爲另類投資增速的四分之一。

What are these alternative investments? The insurance industry guards this information carefully. However, at the insurance industry’s annual meeting earlier this year, participants let slip that insurance is the biggest source of capital for China’s infrastructure construction.

這些另類投資是什麼？保險公司對這些信息守口如瓶。然而，在今年早些時候的保險業年會上，與會者無意中透露，保險業是中國基礎設施建設的最大資金來源。

According to the data presented, in 2014 the insurance industry’s infrastructure investment rose 57 per cent to Rmb1.1tn. This includes everything from bridges and local property developments to more than Rmb100m in affordable housing.

根據年會披露的數據，2014年保險業對基礎設施的投資增長了57%，至1.1萬億元人民幣。這包括對橋樑、地方房地產開發的投資，以及超過1000億元人民幣的棚戶區改造和保障房建設投資。

But the story becomes much more interesting when we look at the main conduits for these investments. Much of this was invested in debt issued by local governments through Local Government Financing Platforms (LGFV). LGFVs are off-balance sheet companies that were established in local towns across China as a way to avoid lending caps to governments for infrastructure investment.

但如果我們看一看這些投資的主要渠道，會發現事情變得有趣得多。這些資金大部分投向地方政府通過“地方政府融資平臺”舉借的債務。地方政府融資平臺是由中國各地地方政府設立的一些表外公司，目的是規避政府的舉債上限，以進行基礎設施投資。

One of our interviewees, who works for the business promotion office at a Jiangsu province LGFV, said insurance investments have been promoted by provincial officials to meet the financial needs of their infrastructure projects because:

在江蘇省的一個地方政府融資平臺的業務拓展辦公室工作的一名受訪者說，省級官員爲了滿足基建項目的融資需求助推保險公司投資，原因是：

1) Insurance companies have stable long-term sources of funds, which match the five-to-ten year construction period of infrastructure projects.

1)保險公司有穩定的長期資金來源，這符合基建項目5到10年的建設期。

2) Insurance companies are willing to lend capital at lower interest rates than another large source of shadow capital, trust funds, namely, 7.5 per cent. “Most importantly, unlike trust companies, we don’t have any other implicit costs,” the official noted. Trusts often have to pay additional fees to banks and other third parties.

2)相比另一大影子融資來源——信託基金，保險公司願意以更低的利率出借資金，也就是7.5%。“最重要的是，與信託公司不同，我們沒有任何其他隱性成本，”這名官員表示。信託公司往往必須向銀行和其他第三方機構支付額外費用。

Take Taikang Life Insurance company. It bought debt issued Wenzhou Shoal, managed by the Wenzhou Port City Development Co., in Zhejiang Province. According to our research, Wenzhou Port City Development Co., Ltd is an independent company, controlled by Oujiang Construction, Investment & Development Co., which is an LGFV. Oujiang is assumed to have an “implicit” government guarantee – although local governments have no legal basis for providing this.

以泰康人壽(Taikang Life Insurance)爲例。該公司認購了浙江省溫州港城發展有限公司溫州淺灘工程的債權投資計劃。根據我們的研究，溫州港城是一家獨立公司，由溫州市甌江口開發建設投資集團(Wenzhou Oujiangkou Development and Construction Investment Group)控股，該集團是一個地方政府融資平臺。該集團被認爲擁有“隱性”的政府擔保，儘管地方政府沒有提供這種擔保的法律依據。

Another firm, Changjiang Pension Insurance bought a seven-year debt investment plan worth Rmb2bn invested in several municipal construction projects managed by Shanghai Shenjiang Group – an LGFV. This was the first pension insurance fund investment in Shanghai urban construction. The capital will be used to pay the debts of seven completed public welfare projects.

另一家公司長江養老保險股份有限公司(Changjiang Pension Insurance)發起了20億元人民幣、期限爲7年的債權投資計劃，向由地方政府融資平臺——上海市申江兩岸開發建設投資集團管理的幾個市政建設工程投資。這是上海市政建設中首次運用養老保險基金投資。這些資金的用途包括償還7個已建成公益性項目的債務。

What is the problem with the insurance companies investing in China’s booming construction industry?

保險公司投資中國蓬勃發展的建築業有什麼不妥之處？

- First, the insurance firms are not transparent to shareholders or investors about where their money is going.

首先，保險公司不向股東和投資者公開資金的流向。

- Second, there is an implicit assumption of government backing for these projects, an assumption which has no legal basis and will be sorely tested as China’s economy slows.

其次，這其中的隱含假設是政府會支持這些項目，這一假設沒有法律依據，在中國經濟放緩之際會受到嚴峻的考驗。

- Third, these are highly risky investments. Local governments are seeing dwindling revenue from land sales and are increasingly desperate to generate new sources of cash, and are thus probably not the safest place to invest insurance premiums.

第三，這些都是高風險投資。看到賣地收入逐漸萎縮的地方政府日益迫切地尋求新的資金來源，因此它們很可能並非保險費投資的最安全之所。

But there is a bigger, more worrisome issue that speaks to the nature of China’s opaque and distributed political and economic system. With a slowing economy, Beijing is searching for mechanisms to simultaneously generate growth and cope with the country’s total debt, now approaching 200 per cent of GDP.

但論及中國不透明和分散式的政治和經濟體系，還有一個更大也更令人憂慮的問題。隨着中國經濟放緩，北京方面正在尋求一個能同時提振增長並應對高額債務的機制，目前中國的總債務已經接近GDP的200%。

Understandably, Beijing’s leaders in the State Council and the central bank are reluctant to lean too much on the country’s banks, which are considered the trigger of last resort. So they are tapping whatever cash pools they can – and insurance companies currently are in Beijing’s sites. In essence, the insurance companies are functioning asproxy Keynesian stimulus levers.

可以理解，國務院和央行的領導們並不情願太過依靠被視爲最後手段的銀行。因此他們儘可能地利用可供利用的資金池，保險公司目前就處在北京的利用範圍內。本質上，保險公司的作用就是代理充當凱恩斯主義的刺激槓桿。

As one insurance executive noted; “To my knowledge, many LFGVs now consider the insurance funds as their life-saving straw to improve the debt structure as the whole country keeps a watchful eye on the risks related to local government debts.”

正如一名保險公司高管提出的：“據我所知，由於全國都對地方政府債務的相關風險十分關注，許多地方政府融資平臺現在把保險公司當作改善債務結構的救命稻草。”

By involving almost every area of the economy in a quasi government stimulus, often through the lightly regulated Shadow Banking system, China risks a fiscal crisis much larger than the current data would suggest. That’s a potential financial time bomb both for China and the rest of the world.

中國把幾乎所有經濟領域都捲入這種準政府刺激之中（往往是通過監管寬鬆的影子銀行系統），會面臨比當前數據顯示出的大得多的財政危機風險。對中國和世界來說，這都是一個潛在的金融定時炸彈。