中國巨額美元盈餘之謎困擾世界市場

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Mystery of China’s Huge Dollar Surplus Baffles World Markets

Enda Curran

Fri., November 5, 2021, 7:54 a.m.

(Bloomberg) -- Unprecedented trade surpluses and record inflows into its bond market are giving China a stockpile of dollars unseen since the days when the ‘Asian savings glut’ was blamed for keeping U.S. interest rates excessively low and fueling the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

But unlike then, when China aggressively recycled its dollar holdings into U.S. Treasuries, China’s giant pile of foreign exchange reserves are holding broadly stable. That means the dollars are being funneled somewhere else, but exactly where is proving to be a bit of a mystery.

While some of that flood of greenbacks is ending up as deposits at Chinese banks, the large ‘errors and omissions’ in the nation’s balance of payments is muddying the picture. What is clear is that the dollars offer China an important cushion against any future shocks in the world economy, even as individual companies like China Evergrande Group struggle to repay their debts.

“It is exceedingly difficult to get a clear view of how China’s current account surplus is recycled,” said Alvin Tan, head of Asia foreign exchange strategy at RBC Capital Markets in Hong Kong. Nonetheless, the dollars mean that “whatever China’s economic challenges ahead, there is little danger of either a balance-of-payments or a foreign-debt problem.”

Foreign currency bank deposits are just shy of a record $1 trillion, while the trade surplus in the first nine months of this year hit about $440 billion compared with the 2015-2019 average of $336 billion and 2020’s $325 billion, according to Morgan Stanley estimates.

At the same time, an aggressive Covid-zero policy has shuttered the nation’s borders and kept millions of Chinese tourists, and their savings, at home.

Some analysts argue that the booming current account has allowed China’s policy makers to rein in massive amounts of debt and begin a long-awaited campaign to deleverage its troubled real estate sector this year. But that leaves a question as to whether America’s demand for goods will keep up enough momentum to offset the effects of China’s slower credit growth.

“Chinese macro policy has become a big bet on U.S. growth as it attempted to replace its credit impulse via the current account,” Jon Turek of JST Advisors wrote in recent research. “China tightened credit while the external-account surplus blew out. This allowed China to import the aggregate demand that it was ‘sacrificing’ from reducing credit growth.”

Most Since 2014

The State Administration of Foreign Exchange released balance of payments data for the third quarter on Friday. They suggested “the fastest reserve accumulation since early 2014,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts wrote. That’s one outlet for the surfeit of dollars, though official reserves as of September were less than at the start of the year.

Economists forecast China will notch yet another trade surplus when it releases data for October on Sunday, this time to the tune of about $64 billion.

China’s current account -- a measure of trade and investment -- slipped into negative territory in the first quarter of 2018 for the first time since it joined the WTO in 2001, raising questions about what that meant for the flow of capital around the world. It sank into the red again in the first quarter of last year, when coronavirus restrictions shuttered factories, but has since rebounded as China’s export engines revved back to full speed.

One consequence of the dollar influx is the yuan’s ongoing strength -- it has been the best performing currency in Asia this year against the dollar. But that isn’t enough to explain what’s happening to all those greenbacks.

One possibility is that companies have left a large slice of their foreign trade receipts overseas, said Becky Liu, Standard Chartered Plc’s head of China macro strategy.

“This means the increased foreign currency holdings are primarily held by the private sector, rather than the public sector,” she said.

The retention of rising foreign currency assets by Chinese private sector entities, rather than their flowing to the public sector, will help reduce market volatility and prepare China for a further opening up of its capital account, she said.

What Bloomberg Economics Says...

“We continue to expect China’s exports to remain strong, though year-on-year growth could slow, while international travel constraints will largely remain in the coming quarter or two, so the pattern of hefty current account surpluses in China should be sustained.”

- David Qu, China economist

Huang Yiping, a former member of the People’s Bank of China’s monetary policy committee, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that the current account surplus will likely recede from these lofty levels as exports soften over time.

“This large current account surplus I think is abnormal,” he said. “Once the pandemic is over, we should expect some normalization of these numbers.”

Yet for now at least, the dollars keep arriving.

Other theories on where the dollars are being recycled include Chinese companies investing overseas or using the cash to fund projects such as those tied to the Belt and Road Initiative.

“The pandemic has created huge distortions in the world, one of which is an extremely large trade surplus in China,” Jen wrote in a note. “Long-Covid should mean that such a flattered trade surplus should take time to fade.”

Goldman Sachs estimated net inflows of around $14 billion for September, well above the $5.5 billion recorded in August, boosted by both the goods trade surplus and foreigners buying more Chinese bonds.

Analysis by Stephen Jen, who runs Eurizon SLJ Capital, a hedge fund and advisory firm in London, shows the run rate of China’s trade surplus is approaching $600 billion a year, which if sustained would become the second highest. The balance of payments is as flush since a record in 2007, he notes.

Translation

（彭博社） - 前所未有的貿易順差和創紀錄的資金流入中國債券市場，給中國帶來了自從“亞洲儲蓄過剩”被指責導緻美國利率過低並助長次貸危機以來, 所未見的美元儲備.

但與那時不同的是，當中國積極將其持有的美元資產循環到美國國債時，中國龐大的外匯儲備總體保持穩定。這意味著美元被轉移到其他地方，但究竟在哪裡是有點神秘。

雖然大量美元最終成為中國銀行的存款，但中國國際收支中的巨大“錯誤和遺漏”正在使情況變得混亂。顯而易見的是，即使中國恆大集團等個別公司難以償還債務，美元仍為中國提供了重要的緩衝，以應對未來世界經濟的任何衝擊。

加拿大皇家銀行資本市場駐香港的亞洲外匯策略主管 Alvin Tan 表示,“要清楚了解中國的經常賬戶盈餘是如何循環是極其困難”。儘管如此，美元意味著“無論中國未來面臨什麼樣的經濟挑戰，國際收支或外債問題的危險都微乎其微。”

據摩根士丹利估計，外幣銀行存款略低於創紀錄的 1 萬億美元，而今年前 9 個月的貿易順差達到約 4400 億美元，而 2015-2019 年的平均水平為 3360 億美元，2020 年為 3250 億美元。

與此同時，一項積極的冠狀病毒病零容忍政策關閉了該國的邊界，並將數百萬中國遊客及其儲蓄留在國內。

一些分析人士認為，強有力的經常賬戶讓中國的政策制定者得以控制巨額債務，並在今年開始了一場期待已久的把陷入困境的房地產行業去槓桿化的運動。但這留下了一個問題，即美國對商品的需求是否會保持足夠的勢頭來抵消中國信貸增長放緩的影響。

JST Advisors 的 Jon Turek 在最近的研究中寫道： “中國的宏觀政策大大地賭注美國有經濟增長，試圖通過經常賬戶取代其信貸衝力”; “中國收緊信貸，同時對外賬戶盈餘爆發。這使中國因信貸增長放緩的 ‘犧牲’ 而能夠進口其總需求。”

自 2014 年以來最多

國家外匯管理局週五發布了第三季度國際收支數據。高盛集團分析師寫道，他們認為這是“自 2014 年初以來最快的儲備積累”。這是美元過剩的一個出口，儘管截至 9 月的官方儲備少於年初。

經濟學家預測，中國將在周日公佈 10 月份的數據時再次出現貿易順差，這次的貿易順差約為 640 億美元。

中國的經常賬戶 - 衡量貿易和投資的指標 - 自 2001 年加入 WTO 以來在 2018 年第一季度首次下滑至負值，引發了人們對這對全球資本流動意味著什麼的疑問。去年第一季度，當冠狀病毒限制關閉工廠時，它再次陷入虧損，但隨著中國出口引擎恢復全速運轉，此後又出現反彈。

美元流入的一個後果是人民幣的持續走強 - 它是今年亞洲兌美元表現最好的貨幣。但這還不足以解釋所有這些美元的情況。

渣打銀行中國宏觀戰略負責人 Becky Liu 表示，一種可能性是企業將很大一部分外貿收入留在了海外。

她說:“這意味著增加的外匯持有量主要由私營体制持有，而不是公共体制”。

她說，中國私營實體保留不斷增加的外幣資產，而不是將其流向公共部門，將有助於減少市場波動，並為中國進一步開放資本賬戶做好準備。

彭博經濟學怎麼說...

“我們繼續預計中國的出口將保持強勁，儘管同比增長可能放緩，而國際旅行限制將在未來一兩個季度基本保持，因此中國經常賬戶巨額順差的格局應該會持續下去。”

 - David Qu，中國經濟學家

 中國人民銀行前貨幣政策委員會委員Huang Yiping在接受彭博電視採訪時表示，隨著出口逐漸走軟，經常賬戶盈餘可能會從這些高位回落。

“我認為這種巨額經常賬戶盈餘是不正常的，”他說。 “一旦大流行結束，我們應該期待這些數字正常化。”

然而至少就目前而言，美元仍在不斷湧入。

關於美元在哪裡循環的其他理論包括中國公司在海外投資, 或使用現金資助與“一帶一路”倡議相關的項目。

Jen在一份報告中寫道: “大流行在世界上造成了巨大的扭曲，其中之一是中國的巨大貿易順差”; “長期Covid應該意味著這種受寵若驚的貿易順差應該需要時間才能消退。”

高盛估計 9 月份的淨流入約為 140 億美元，遠高於 8 月份的 55 億美元，這得益於商品貿易順差和外國人購買更多中國債券。

倫敦對沖基金和諮詢公司 Eurizon SLJ Capital 的負責人Stephen Jen 的分析顯示，中國每年的貿易順差接近 6000 億美元，如果走勢持續下去，將成為第二高。 他指出，國際收支自 2007 年創下紀錄以來一直處於充裕水平。

              So, unprecedented trade surpluses and record inflows into its bond market are giving China a stockpile of dollars unseen for a long time. There is a theory that the dollars are being recycled through Chinese companies investing overseas, or that the cash is used to fund projects such as those tied to the Belt and Road Initiative. The simple fact is that China has a lot of cash on hand.