英國應向中國學習基建投資

Thirty years ago it took eight hours to drive the 150km from Beijing to Tianjin, China’s fourth city. A decade or so ago, motorway investment had cut the time to two hours. Today, by bullet train, the journey is barely 30 minutes.

北京到天津的距離是150公里，30年前，如果驅車的話需要8個小時。大約十年前，高速公路的投資讓這一時間縮短至兩個小時。如今，如果乘坐高鐵的話，時間僅爲30分鐘。

When infrastructure investment is made in developing economies, the gains are dramatic and obvious. But Gerry Grimstone, the chairman of Standard Life, the UK insurer whose Chinese headquarters sits in Tianjin, is convinced that Britain and other developed nations can learn the lessons, too.

在發展中經濟體進行基礎設施投資，將會取得巨大而明顯的收益。但英國保險公司標準人壽(Standard Life)的董事長格里•格里姆斯通(Gerry Grimstone)確信，英國和其他發達國家也可以從中學習經驗。標準人壽在中國的總部位於天津。

He is not alone. Legal & General has already made a big push into the area. In January, it announced a commitment to put £1.5bn into a projected £15bn scheme to promote housing and infrastructure regeneration. Nigel Wilson, L&G’s CEO, who has led a shift in investment allocation towards such assets, has been a vocal campaigner.

有這種想法的並非他一人。英國法通保險集團(Legal & General)已經大舉進軍這一領域。今年1月，該公司承諾將爲一個擬投資150億英鎊的住房和基礎設施重建項目出資15億英鎊。法通保險首席執行官納傑爾•威爾遜(Nigel Wilson)一直大力呼籲投資於基礎設施項目，他也率先將投資配置轉向此類資產。

Prudential and Aviva, the UK’s other leading insurers, have been lower key, but they, too, have been supportive.

英國其他主要保險商保誠集團(Prudential)和英傑華(Aviva)較爲低調，但他們也支持這種投資。

The dynamic is simple enough. Central banks have held interest rates at ultra-low levels, trimming the yields available from safe sovereign bonds close to zero in many cases. At the same time, insurers and pension funds need investments that promise reliable long-term returns.

這種投資背後的動機非常簡單。各國央行將利率保持在超低水平，讓許多國家的安全主權債券的收益率降至零。與此同時，保險公司和養老基金需要有望帶來長期可靠回報的投資。

Infrastructure investment, whether in emerging markets or in the west, is an obvious match. Lengthy projects to build roads, railways, airports and energy installations often have the right kind of steady returns, with a duration that lines up well with commitments to pay out life assurance or pension policies 10, 20 or 30 years hence.

無論是在新興市場還是在西方，基礎設施投資顯然都符合這一條件。建設公路、鐵路、機場和能源裝置的長期項目通常擁有合適的穩定回報，時間週期也與人壽保險或養老保險金的10年、20年或30年的償付承諾相匹配。

At the same time, there is a financing gap. One legacy of the financial crisis has been banks’ retreat from project finance of this kind. Few lenders these days will take long-term investments on to their balance sheets. Even as counterparties who structure a deal and underpin it with short-term bridge finance, banks are in short supply. This is partly a result of a shrunken risk appetite aCross banking. It is also thanks to tougher capital charges on such assets, imposed by global regulators.

與此同時，基礎設施建設存在資金上的缺口。金融危機的一個後遺症是銀行不再爲此類項目提供融資。現在很少有銀行願意爲長期投資融資。即便是作爲安排交易並提供短期過橋資金支持的對手方，銀行也多有不願。這在一定程度上是整個銀行業風險偏好下降的結果，同時也緣於全球監管機構收緊了對此類資產的資本要求。

The need is vast. In a report published just as the financial crisis hit, the OECD predicted a need for $50tn of global infrastructure funding by 2030. How to reconcile these record investment demands with the scant supply evident in the traditional financing landscape?

需求是巨大的。經合組織(OECD)在金融危機爆發之際發佈的一份報告中預測，到2030年全球基礎設施融資需求將達到50萬億美元。如何協調這些創紀錄的投資需求與傳統金融領域明顯的供應匱乏？

The answer often has been to turn to parts of the world that have investment surpluses — the sovereign wealth funds of the Middle East and Asia, as well as the pension fund systems of Canada and Australia.

答案往往是求助於投資資金過剩的某些國家——中東地區和亞洲的主權財富基金——以及加拿大和澳大利亞的養老金體系。

For a while it worked well. Multibillion-dollar SWFs could deal direct with government to finance whole projects, reducing the need for complex structuring. Yet finding funds abroad has sometimes proved problematic. Investment in the £24.5bn Hinkley point nuclear expansion project in southwest England, run by France’s EDF, has been held up because of wrangling between the energy group and potential Chinese investors.

這種做法一度很有效。擁有數十億美元的主權財富基金可以直接與各國政府接觸來爲整個項目融資，從而不必進行復雜的結構性安排。然而事實證明，尋找海外資金有時也會有麻煩。由於運營方法國電力集團(EDF)和潛在的中國投資者的角力，位於英格蘭西南部的造價245億英鎊的欣克利角(Hinkley Point)核電站擴建項目的投資被擱置。

Where is the UK money? To date, L&G has done the most in this area, investing £5.7bn across a swath of property and infrastructure projects. But that is still barely 1 per cent of assets under management. Even its ambitious £15bn new scheme, which has yet to draw in the necessary partners, would not compete for the really large-scale national projects, focusing instead on £300-500m investments.

英國的資金哪裏去了？截至目前，法通保險在這個領域中的動作最大，它拿出57億英鎊投資於衆多房地產和基礎設施項目。但這只是其管理資產的1%。甚至其雄心勃勃、迄今仍在尋找必要合作者的150億英鎊新投資計劃，也不會競爭真正大規模的國家項目，而是聚焦於3億英鎊至5億英鎊的投資。

For the £1bn or £5bn-plus projects, single insurers or pension funds need to team up. Someone just needs to co-ordinate the effort. Bank investors used to do that, as did old-style merchant banks. There are few individuals pioneering the mission from the public sector side either. It is not a coincidence that the UK’s most ambitious project — London’s Crossrail west-to-east train link — has been shepherded by Boris Johnson who even critics would admit has been an unusually energetic force for change in the capital.

對10億英鎊或50億英鎊以上的項目來說，單個的保險公司或養老基金需要合作。需要有人協調這種努力。銀行投資者曾經充當過協調人，就像舊式的商業銀行那樣。如今在公共部門中也很少有人願意成爲承擔這一使命的先鋒。英國最爲雄心勃勃的項目——倫敦橫貫鐵路(Crossrail)——一直由鮑里斯•約翰遜(Boris Johnson)負責，這並非巧合，即便是批評者也承認，對於推動倫敦的改變，約翰遜是一股精力異常旺盛的力量。

The plan for an Infrastructure Commission from the opposition Labour party sounds encouraging. It is pledging an aggressive agenda of investment in energy, flood defences and transport, and sounds more substantive than the Treasury’s largely administrative arm, Infrastructure UK.

反對黨工黨提出的設立基礎設施委員會(Infrastructure Commission)的計劃聽起來令人振奮。它承諾大舉投資於能源、防洪和交通基礎設施，聽起來比英國財政部下屬主要負責行政的Infrastructure UK更着眼實際。

This week’s Budget from chancellor George Osborne will give the current government a last chance to inject some urgency into UK infrastructure investment. Done right, the spoils should be rich — both for investors and those who long for a country as joined up as modern China.

英國財政大臣喬治•奧斯本(George Osborne)將會在本週宣佈預算案，這將是現任政府提高英國基礎設施投資緊迫性的最後機會。運作得當的話，好處是巨大的，無論是對投資者，還是對那些渴望英國像現代化的中國那樣交通發達的人來說，均是如此。