FT大视野：新兴市场面临债务压力
受恐怖主义和政治不确定性的影响，土耳其旅游业经历了糟糕的两年，但在土耳其地中海沿岸拥有5家酒店的商人埃尔图鲁尔(Ertuğrul)坚持分期偿还债务本息。在最绝望的时期，为了维持下去，他出售了一家纺织厂，并将员工从800人裁至200人。
He is hopeful that a return of Russian and European visitors in the coming months will help prices to recover, but remains anxious that any increase in the 4 per cent interest rate he is paying on an $8m loan will spell trouble. “If interest rates rise it is going to make things more and more difficult for me,” he says. “If it goes above 6 per cent then it will become intolerable.”
他期待，未来几个月俄罗斯和欧洲游客的回归将有利于价格反弹，但他仍担心，一笔800万美元贷款目前4%的利率一旦上升将带来问题。“如果利率上升，我的日子将变得越来越难过，”他表示，“如果超过6%，我就受不了了。”
Ertuğrul, who declined to give a surname, is far from alone. Across the emerging world, businesses, households and governments loaded up on an estimated $40tn of cheap debt during the decade of loose monetary policy in the developed world that followed the global financial crisis.
埃尔图鲁尔拒绝透露姓氏，他远非惧怕利率上升的唯一商人。全球金融危机爆发后，发达国家实行了10年的宽松货币政策。其间整个新兴市场的企业、家庭和政府据估计累积了40万亿美元的廉价债务。
Now that period is nearing its end, and as the US continues its “normalisation” of monetary policy — with a further three or four interest rate rises expected this year — several analysts have questioned whether the emerging world’s debt pile is sustainable.
如今，这个阶段即将结束，随着美国继续推进货币政策“正常化”(预计今年还有3次或4次加息)，几位分析人士质疑新兴世界背负的大量债务是否可持续。
“The premise on which lenders keep lending to borrowers as they become more indebted is that the backdrop will stay benign,” says Sonja Gibbs, senior director for global capital markets at the Washington-based Institute of International Finance, an industry association. With political uncertainty on the rise around the world, she says, “it feels more like there is the potential for events to trigger volatility in emerging markets than it has done for some time”.
“银行在借款者负债更高时继续贷款给他们的假设是，大环境将保持良性，”总部位于华盛顿的行业协会国际金融协会(IIF)的全球资本市场高级主管索尼娅•吉布斯(Sonja Gibbs)表示。她表示，随着全球政治不确定性上升，“与一段时间以来相比，感觉像是各种事件更有可能触发新兴市场的动荡”。
The uncertainty that gripped global financial markets in early February — sparked, many believe, by strong US job numbers that raised the prospect of jumps in inflation and interest rates — was one sign that the backdrop may not stay benign for very much longer.
今年2月初席卷全球金融市场的不确定性就是一个迹象，表明良性的大环境可能不会持续更久。很多人认为，此轮不确定性的导火线是美国的强劲就业数据，因为这带来通胀和利率上升的可能性。
The reason for the growing concern is clear. Among a group of 21 developed markets monitored by the IIF, the combined outstanding debt of households, governments, corporations and financial institutions rose from the equivalent of about 290 per cent of their combined gross domestic product at the end of the 1990s, to 380 per cent at the end of 2008. Since then, it is broadly unchanged.
担忧愈演愈烈的原因显而易见。在国际金融协会监测的21个发达市场，家庭、政府、企业和金融机构的未偿还债务总额与合计国内生产总值(GDP)之比，从上世纪90年代末的约290%升至2008年底的380%。此后这个比率基本未变。
But, since the crisis, debt in emerging markets has surged. In China, it rose from 171 per cent of GDP at the end of 2008 to 295 per cent at the end of last September. The combined debts of a group of 26 large emerging markets monitored by the IIF rose from 148 per cent of GDP at the end of 2008 to 211 per cent last September.
但自金融危机爆发以来，新兴市场债务剧增。在中国，债务与GDP之比从2008年底的171%升至去年9月底的295%。在国际金融协会监测的26个大型新兴市场，债务总额与GDP之比从2008年底的148%升至去年9月的211%。
The IMF and others argue that the pace of debt growth is often at least as significant as its overall level in signalling trouble ahead. Yet the rapid rise in emerging market debt to GDP during the past decade — by more than 40 per cent in the IIF’s 26 countries and by more than 70 per cent in China — has still to register with many people.
国际货币基金组织(IMF)和其他一些人提出，就预示未来危机而言，债务增速往往至少与债务整体水平一样重要。然而过去10年，新兴市场债务与GDP之比的迅速提高(在国际金融协会监测的26个国家上升逾40%，在中国上升逾70%)仍未引起很多人的注意。
Instead, attention has been focused on more positive factors.
相反，人们的注意力放在更为积极的因素上。
Emerging economies are growing more quickly than at any time since the crisis: many analysts expect their aggregate GDP to rise by as much as 5 per cent this year, far more than in the developed world. Causes of instability in the past, such as big current account deficits, have largely been erased. Emerging market stocks have performed well for the past two years, yet are still attractively priced compared with those in developed markets.
新兴经济体的增速现在超过自金融危机以来的任何时候：很多分析人士预计，新兴市场合计GDP今年有望达到5%，远远超过发达国家。巨额经常账户赤字等过去导致不稳定的因素已基本消除。过去两年新兴市场股市表现不错，但其定价仍比发达市场股市更具吸引力。
For the year ahead, the consensus outlook for financial markets remains sanguine, amid a belief that investors will take the gradual normalisation of US monetary policy in their stride and, crucially, that the US dollar will continue to weaken despite rising US interest rates. With the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank yet to join the US Federal Reserve in starting to tighten, global monetary conditions remain loose, meaning emerging markets are likely to remain a popular place to invest.
未来一年，人们对于金融市场前景的共识仍然乐观，相信投资者将从容应对美国货币政策的渐进正常化，同时至关重要的是，尽管美国利率上升，但人们相信美元将继续走弱。考虑到日本央行(Bank of Japan)和欧洲央行(ECB)尚未跟随美联储(Federal Reserve)开始收紧政策，全球货币条件仍然宽松，新兴市场很可能仍将是一个受欢迎的投资地点。
Indeed, the continuing ability to borrow cheaply should be a boon for growth. “Emerging markets have been taking advantage of extremely favourable borrowing conditions,” says Charles Robertson, chief economist at Renaissance Capital, an investment bank focused on emerging markets. “You would hope they could support growth through investment at these interest rates.”
的确，保持廉价借入资金的能力对于增长而言应该是一个利好。“新兴市场一直在利用极为有利的借款条件，”专注新兴市场的投行晋新资本(Renaissance Capital)的首席经济学家查尔斯•罗伯逊(Charles Robertson)表示，“你会希望，在这种利率水平上，他们可以通过投资来支持增长。”
Markets wobbled again last week when Jay Powell, the new chairman of the Fed, hinted at a faster pace of US interest rate rises this year.
最近市场再次动荡，当时美联储新主席杰伊•鲍威尔(Jay Powell)暗示，今年加息速度可能加快。
Nevertheless, bond issuance by governments and companies in emerging markets continues at a fast pace, at more than $1tn for each of the past two years, with investors apparently undeterred by Mozambique’s renegotiation of its debt two years ago or by the prospect that Angola may soon follow suit. “People will buy anything so long as it offers them yield and diversification,” one banker told the Financial Times.
然而，新兴市场政府和企业的债券发行规模继续快速增长，过去两年每年都超过1万亿美元，投资者显然没有被两年前莫桑比克重新谈判其债务、或者安哥拉可能很快也这么做的可能性吓倒。一位银行家告诉英国《金融时报》：“只要提供收益率和多样性，人们什么都买。”
Some urge caution and suggest that emerging markets would be wise not to assume that financial conditions will continue to be as easy as they are today. Paul Greer, emerging markets debt portfolio manager at Fidelity International, says differences in interest rate expectations between the US and Europe suggest the dollar has become undervalued against the euro during the past six to nine months and is overdue for a correction.
一些人敦促要谨慎，并提出，新兴市场最好不去假设金融状况将继续像现在这样宽松。富达国际(Fidelity International)新兴市场债务投资组合经理保罗•格里尔(Paul Greer)表示，美欧之间的利率预期差距似乎表明，过去6到9个月，美元兑欧元汇率已变得低估，调整早该出现了。
He also points to changing financial conditions in emerging markets themselves.
他还指出，新兴市场本身的金融状况也在发生变化。
Weighted in line with the members of the JPMorgan GBI-EM global diversified bond index, there has been a downward trend for inflation in emerging markets over the past six years and it is still falling. But measured in the same way, inflation expectations have been heading upwards since November. While inflation will continue to fall in some countries, Mr Greer expects it to turn positive for emerging markets as a whole.
参照摩根大通(JPMorgan)全球新兴市场政府债券指数(GBI-EM)的权重，过去6年新兴市场通胀出现下滑趋势，目前仍在下滑。但根据同样的方法衡量，自去年11月以来，通胀预期一直在上行。尽管一些国家的通胀将继续下降，但格里尔预测，新兴市场作为一个整体的通胀率将上升。
He warns that buyers of local currency emerging market bonds, who have done well in the rally of the past two years as investors have sought to take advantage of the improving growth outlook, “are going to lose out”.
他警告称，购买本币新兴市场债券的投资者“将蒙受亏损”;在过去两年的上涨行情中，随着投资者寻求利用不断改善的增长前景，它们表现不错。
Others argue that if quantitative easing was the driver of rising global asset prices, it makes sense that quantitative tightening, already under way in the US and soon to come elsewhere, should have the opposite effect. 其他人辩称，如果说量化宽松政策推动了全球资产价格不断上涨，那么量化收紧(美国已经启动，其他地方不久也将跟进)应该会造成相反影响的说法是有道理的。
Most argue that emerging markets are much better prepared to face these shocks than they were in the past, and not only thanks to their better current account balances. Many governments have weaned themselves off foreign currency debt and have tapped deeper capital markets at home by issuing bonds in their own currencies, giving them a greater degree of control if conditions turn bad.
多数人辩称，新兴市场为应对这些冲击所做的准备要比过去充分，这不仅源于它们拥有更好的经常账户平衡。很多国家的政府摆脱了对外币债务的依赖，而是通过发行本币债券，更深入地挖掘国内资本市场;如果形势变糟，这将赋予它们更强的控制能力。
Yet the amount of debt issued in foreign currencies, while it has fallen as a share of the total, has continued to rise in relation to emerging market GDP and now stands at about 30 per cent. Many borrowers are exposed to the danger of having to pay foreign currency debt out of revenues in weakening local currencies, should the US dollar strengthen.
然而，尽管外币债券规模占债券总规模的比例下滑，但其与新兴市场GDP之比继续上升，如今达到30%左右。很多借款者面临这种危险：如果美元走强，而他们的收入以不断贬值的本币计价，那么用收入来偿还外币债务就可能遇到困难。
“Investors should be asking questions about the weak dollar,” says Mr Robertson at Renaissance Capital. “If we see higher US interest rates and a strong US dollar, that will be a double whammy to those who have taken out this much dollar debt.”
“投资者应该提出美元疲软的问题，”晋新资本的罗伯逊表示，“如果美国加息且美元强劲，那将给背上这么多美元债务的借款者造成双重打击。”
Ms Gibbs says that of most concern is the sovereign debt of some African countries. But she adds that there are also “exotic” newcomers to the bond market which have taken advantage of investors’ risk appetite to issue bonds that would have struggled to find buyers in less exuberant times.
国际金融协会的吉布斯表示，最令人担忧的是一些非洲国家的主权债务。但她补充称，债券市场还出现了一些“奇特”的新进入者，它们利用投资者的风险胃口，发行在不那么火爆的时期将很难找到买家的债券。
Nor should investors be complacent about the rise of local currency debt, that now adds up to 181 per cent of GDP among emerging borrowers. As Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff noted in their 2009 book This Time is Different — an analysis of the causes of the global financial crisis — governments often restructure or default on foreign debts at surprisingly low levels because of their large levels of domestic debt, often unseen and therefore not factored in to calculations by lenders.
投资者也不应该对本币债务越来越多持无所谓的态度，如今新兴市场本币债务与GDP之比达到了181%。卡门•莱因哈特(Carmen Reinhart)和肯尼斯•罗格夫(Kenneth Rogoff)在2009年出版了《这一次不一样》(This Time is Different)，对全球金融危机的原因进行了分析。正如该书所指出的那样，各国政府往往在低得令人意外的水平对外债进行重组或违约，原因就在于其庞大的国内债务水平，而外界往往看不到这一点，因此没有被贷款人考虑在内。
In parallel, many emerging markets have reduced the level of government debt as a share of their total, with more taken out by the private sector. The shift is broadly welcomed for distancing debt from public policy and spreading risk across a national economy.
与此同时，许多新兴市场降低了政府债务在债务总额中的比例，更多的债务由私营部门背上。这一转变受到普遍欢迎，因为它可以让公共政策少受债务影响，并在国民经济中分散风险。
Yet this view, too, is likely to be tested in times of difficulty. As Mrs Reinhart and Mr Rogoff also noted, corporate defaults have frequently been precursors to government defaults, “as governments have tended to shoulder private sector debts”. When things go wrong, in other words, each country has just the one balance sheet.
然而，这种观点在困难时期也可能经受考验。正如莱因哈特和罗格夫也指出的那样，企业违约常常是政府违约的先兆，“因为政府倾向于承担私人部门的债务”。换句话说，在形势变糟的时候，每个国家都只有一份资产负债表。
The recent blurring of lines between the public and private sectors and between financial and non-financial corporations has made the issue more urgent. Recent work by the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements — the so-called central bank of central banks — highlights the expanding role of businesses not only as borrowers, but also as lenders.
近期公共部门和私营部门之间、以及金融公司和非金融公司之间的界限日益模糊，使这个问题变得更加紧迫。总部位于巴塞尔、有“央行的央行”之称的国际清算银行(BIS)最近的研究突显出，企业不仅作为借款人的角色扩大，作为贷款人的角色也在扩大。
A BIS paper published in February points to the growing role of cash-rich Chinese companies, both private and state-owned, as suppliers of credit into the country’s shadow banking system. The report says the amount of credit supplied by the corporate sector into the shadow banking system roughly doubled between 2013 and 2016, from Rmb7.2tn to Rmb14tn ($1.1tn to $2.2tn at current prices).
国际清算银行在今年2月发表的一份报告中指出，现金充沛的中国公司(无论是私营公司还是国有公司)作为信贷提供者在国内影子银行体系中的角色越来越大。报告称，从2013年到2016年，企业部门向影子银行体系提供的信贷额大约增长了一倍，即从7.2万亿元人民币增加到14万亿元人民币(按当前汇率计算是从1.1万亿美元增至2.2万亿美元)。
In a separate paper last year, Hyun Song Shin of the BIS and Valentina Bruno of American University in Washington examined the rise in foreign-currency bond issuance by companies in emerging markets and found that such companies tend to borrow more in US dollars when they already hold large amounts of cash. The proceeds typically go into bank deposits and money market instruments to capture the difference between US and local interest rates, adding to the amount of lending available locally.
在去年的另一篇论文中，国际清算银行的申铉松(Hyun Song Shin)和华盛顿美国大学(American University)的瓦伦丁娜•布鲁诺(Valentina Bruno)研究了新兴市场公司发行外币债券的增长情况，发现这些公司往往在已经持有大量现金的时候借入更多的美元。所得款项通常进入银行存款账户和货币市场工具，以套取美国和当地的利差，从而增加当地可用的放贷资金。
Other recent work by the BIS points to the role of the weak dollar in encouraging investment in emerging markets, because it makes finance cheaper and more abundant. It can even support emerging market exports — a counterintuitive proposition based on the premise that exports increasingly depend on long and complex supply chains, which also rely on cheap and abundant credit.
国际清算银行近期的另一项研究指出了美元疲软在鼓励新兴市场投资方面的作用，因为这使融资成本更低，资金更充足。美元疲软甚至可以支撑新兴市场出口——这个违反直觉的命题的依据是出口日益依赖于长而复杂的供应链，而后者也依赖于廉价而充足的信贷。
All of this would be at risk should the dollar begin to strengthen.
一旦美元开始走强，这一切都将面临风险。
Brazil, which last year emerged from the deepest recession in its history, has been a darling of foreign investors for at least the past year on the basis that things can only get better. Yet Nick Dunbar, founder of the website Risky Finance, noted in January that the country — which holds elections in October — will have financing needs equal to 15 per cent of GDP this year. The private sector is not immune: the scandal-hit construction company Odebrecht is struggling to meet bond payments.
去年开始摆脱史上最严重衰退的巴西，至少在过去一年时间里成为外国投资者的宠儿，其依据是形势只会向好的方向发展。然而，Risky Finance网站的创始人尼克•邓巴(Nick Dunbar) 1月指出，将于10月举行大选的巴西今年的融资需求相当于GDP的15%。私营部门也不能幸免：丑闻缠身的建筑公司Odebrecht将很难兑付债券。
According to Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz: “We are not in a stable and good equilibrium. We are seeing the end of an increasingly unstable paradigm between finance and economics.”
安联(Allianz)首席经济顾问穆罕默德•埃尔-埃利安(Mohamed El-Erian)表示：“我们目前并非处于稳定而良好的平衡状态。我们正在看到金融和经济之间一个日益不稳定的范式的终结。”
He sees two potential outcomes: one in which emerging market debt becomes less of a problem because growth is maintained; and another, less benign, future in which developed markets do not maintain their pick-up in growth, “and we get policy mistakes [in emerging markets] and the system fragments more quickly”.
他认为可能出现两种结局：一种是，因为经济保持增长，新兴市场的债务问题变得不那么严重;另一种结局则不太妙，发达市场没能保持增长势头，“而新兴市场出现政策失误，整个系统更快碎片化”。
Ms Gibbs at the IIF shares that view. “It feels like we are at an inflection point,” she says. “We have gone for so long with a sense of underlying calm, but now the Fed is more hawkish, the ECB and BoJ are less dovish, and consensus views are being shaken across the board.”
国际金融协会的吉布斯也持相同看法。“感觉就像我们现在正处于一个拐点，”她表示，“我们经历了这么久的风平浪静，但现在美联储更为鹰派，欧洲央行和日本央行也不再那么鸽派，共识观点正受到全方位冲击。”
Additional reporting by Laura Pitel in Ankara
劳拉•皮特尔(Laura Pitel)安卡拉补充报道
