DATAWATCH
Quiet capital flight dents China's sway as $1.2tn
'disappears'
Beijing faces waning global clout with current-account
deficit looming
JUNE 23, 2019 02:00 JST
The IMF forecasts that China's current-account balance will
turn negative in 2022.
BEIJING/TOKYO -- China has flexed its financial muscle to
strengthen its international influence in recent years, but the country is fast
approaching a point where it may have to rethink its strategy.
The International Monetary Fund forecasts that China's
current-account balance will turn negative in 2022, due to the effects of the
U.S. trade war and other developments. Under the surface, a huge outflow of
money is widening beyond the control of the government's strict regulators.
The trend raises the possibility of a shift in the global
balance of power.
A total of $1.2 trillion has "disappeared" from
China's statistics in a little over a decade, potentially undermining the clout
the country has sought to build through the Belt and Road infrastructure
initiative and huge investments in U.S. government bonds.
The IMF says China had $2.1 trillion in external net assets
as of 2018 -- the third-largest total after Japan's $3.1 trillion and Germany's
$2.3 trillion, but well below its current-account surplus.
Normally, a current-account surplus moves in tandem with an
increase or decrease in external net assets. But while China's surplus grew by $2
trillion from 2009 to 2018, its external assets rose by only $740 billion in
the same period.
What explains the $1.2 trillion difference?
Yu Yongding, an economist and former member of the People's
Bank of China monetary policy committee, offered a theory. If a Chinese company
exports products worth $1 million to the U.S., it logs the amount as sales in
trade with the U.S., according to Yu. But sometimes, only $500,000 ends up in
the company's bank account in China, while the other half remains abroad.
Yu said the accumulation of such money explains a portion of
the $1.2 trillion.
In China's official statistics, a category called "net
errors and omissions" covers such hazy transactions. For the 2009-2018
period, China recorded minus $1.1 trillion in this segment -- suspiciously
close to $1.2 trillion.
China's net errors and omissions apparently include losses
on emerging-market currencies in its foreign reserves. But as they tend to
increase when the yuan falls in value, an informal outflow of funds is believed
to account for a large portion of the errors and omissions.
Soon, according to the IMF, China will see its
current-account balance turn negative. The international body expects a deficit
of $6.6 billion in 2022.
The country's travel-account deficit is also a drag on the
balance -- and this is not just due to tourists' shopping sprees.
A Chinese man who works for a company in Beijing last year
purchased a second-hand studio apartment in Tokyo for 10 million yen ($93,000).
He paid by pooling small amounts of funds he had brought whenever he visited
Japan for pleasure or business.
"Part of the travel expenditures is capital flight, and
has been used to purchase financial products and property," Yu said.
China's travel-account deficit began to increase sharply in
2014. It accounts for roughly 80% of the deficit in service trade, and is
calculated from currency exchanges at banks in China, payments by credit cards
and smartphones, withdrawals of cash from ATMs, and other transactions by
tourists going overseas and students studying abroad.
One study suggests that 60% of the travel balance deficit is
due to capital flight.
The bottom line is that, due to capital outflows around
Beijing's regulations, China's net external assets have not increased as much
as its current-account surplus and its income balance remains in the red.
Tadashi Nakamae, president of Japan's Nakamae International
Economic Research, predicts a Chinese current-account deficit will become an
established trend.
"Downside pressure on the yuan will increase more in
the future," said Zhang Ming, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences.
Translation
資金悄悄地外逃令中國的影響力下降
- 1.2萬億美元“消失”
由於經常賬戶赤字迫在眉睫，北京面臨全球影響力下降
JUNE 23, 2019 02:00 JST
國際貨幣基金組織預測，中國的經常賬戶餘額將在2022年轉為負值。
北京/東京 - 中國近年來已經發揮其財務實力以加強其國際影響力，但該國正在快速接近一程度可能需要重新考慮其戰略。
國際貨幣基金組織預測，由於美國貿易戰和其他發展的影響，中國的經常賬戶餘額將在2022年轉為負值。表面上看，巨額資金外流正在擴大，超出了政府嚴格的監管機構的控制範圍。
這一趨勢提高了全球力量平衡轉變的可能性。
在十多年的時間裡，總計有1.2萬億美元從中國的統計數據中“消失”，可能會削弱該國通過“一帶一路”基礎設施倡議,
和對美國政府債券的巨額投資里面尋求建立的影響力。
國際貨幣基金組織表示，截至2018年，中國擁有2.1萬億美元的外部淨資產 - 僅次於日本3.1萬億美元和德國2.3萬億美元之後的第三大總額，但遠低於其經常賬戶盈餘。
通常，經常賬戶盈餘與外部淨資產的增加或減少同時發生變化。但是，儘管從2009年到2018年中國的順差增長了2萬億美元，但同期其對外資產僅增加了7,400億美元。
什麼能解釋了1.2萬億美元的差異？
中國人民銀行貨幣政策委員會前成員經濟學家余永定提出了一個理論。據余提供出的理論，如果一家中國公司向美國出口價值100萬美元的產品，它會記錄與美國貿易的銷售額。但有時，該公司在中國的銀行賬戶中只有50萬美元，而另一半則留在國外。
余永定說，這筆錢的積累解釋了1.2萬億美元的一部分。
在中國的官方統計數據中，一個名為“網絡錯誤和遺漏”的類別涵蓋了這種模糊的交易。在2009-2018期間，在這一部分中國這減了1.1萬億美元 - 可疑地接近1.2萬億美元。
中國的淨誤差和遺漏顯然包括在外匯儲備中新興市場貨幣的損失。但由於人民幣價值下跌時損失往往會增加，因此資金的非正式流出被認為是造成錯誤和遺漏的主要原因。
據國際貨幣基金組織稱，中國的經常賬戶餘額將快將會轉為負值。該國際機構預計2022年將出現66億美元的赤字。
該國的旅遊賬戶赤字也拖累了這一平衡 - 這不僅僅是因為遊客購物狂潮。
去年在北京為一家公司工作的中國男子以1000萬日元（93,000美元）的價格在東京購買了一套二手工作室公寓。他通過匯集他每次去日本旅遊或商務時帶來的少量資金來支付。
“旅行支出的一部分是資本外逃，並已用於購買金融產品和財產，” 余永定說。
中國的旅遊賬戶赤字在2014年開始大幅增加。它佔服務貿易逆差的大約80％，是根據中國銀行的貨幣來兌換 -- 信用卡和智能手機支,
或從ATM提取現金, 以及海外遊客和留學生的其他支出交易。
一項研究表明，60％的旅遊赤字是由於資本外逃造成的。
底線是由於資本外流是圍繞北京的法規，中國的淨外部資產並沒有像其經常賬戶盈餘那樣地同步增加，其收入餘額仍處於虧損狀態。
日本Nakamae國際經濟研究中心主席Tadashi
Nakamae預測，中國的經常賬戶赤字將成為一種既定趨勢。
中國社會科學院研究員張明表示，“人民幣下行壓力將在未來增加。”
Comments:
No wonder in the past few years China has been trying to restrict mainland Chinese tourists in Hong Kong to use their credit cards to buy insurance. In recent years some insurance companies in
Hong Kong have been enjoying a boom due to the large number of customers from
mainland China.
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