分析 - 令人頭疼的 1 萬億美元：中國地方財政赤字帶來更廣泛的增長風險

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Analysis - A $1 trillion headache: China's local fiscal shortfall poses broader growth risks

Mon, October 17, 2022 at 8:05 AM

By Ellen Zhang and Ryan Woo

BEIJING (Reuters) - By any account, $1 trillion seems huge. That's the scale of budget shortfalls facing Chinese provinces, reducing their fiscal firepower to fund infrastructure spending and tax cuts, and raising risks for the world's second-biggest economy in 2023.

The timing couldn't be worse for policymakers in Beijing, as the economy wobbles under the weight of global recession risks, surging commodity costs, rising geopolitical tension and widespread COVID-19 lockdowns at home - spoiling the backdrop of a once-in-five-years congress of the ruling Communist Party that got underway on Sunday.

Local governments have long been a pump-primer of China's growth, but declining state land sales revenue in the wake of an ongoing crackdown on debt in the sector has severely eroded their financial power - a situation exacerbated this year by China's feeble growth, weak tax income and crippling COVID restrictions.

Local governments must also make debt payments in coming months, portending more financial pain and limiting their ability to meet Beijing's requests to boost spending. Already, many of them have resorted to cutting salaries, reducing headcounts, lowering subsidies and even imposing disproportionately hefty fines to meet budget shortfalls.

In the first eight months, China's 31 provincial-level regions reported a gap between general public revenue and expenditure totalling 6.74 trillion yuan ($948 billion). That's the widest for the period since at least 2012, Reuters calculations from local government data in the past decade showed, with the populous provinces of Sichuan, Henan, Hunan and Guangdong suffering the largest shortfalls.

In the same period, government land sales, counted separately, tumbled 28.5% year-on-year to 3.37 trillion yuan, adding urgency to the need to restore the financial health of indebted real estate firms.

"With the slower growth this year, we expect fiscal deficits for regional and local governments will remain substantial, reflecting the property slowdown and lingering effects of the coronavirus shock," said Jennifer A. Wong, analyst at Moody's, which expects 2022 economic growth to slow to 3.5% from 8.1% in 2021.

In the past, shortfalls were largely offset by transfer payments from the central government and carryover funds from previous years, but analysts say cooling economic growth may limit any such help this time around.

Policymakers will also be wary of picking up the fiscal slack with large-scale monetary stimulus as a wave of global interest rate hikes to rein in red-hot inflation has sent U.S. bond yields soaring, widening the yield gap between U.S. and Chinese debt.

DEBT STRESS

Treasury bond quotas could be increased, so that some of them could be transferred to local governments to ease their fiscal stress, said Luo Zhiheng, chief macroeconomic analyst at Yuekai Securities.

However, they face a squeeze on their already tight cash-flows as maturing local government debts peak in 2023 for the 2021-2025 period, Luo warned.

Combined with some maturing debts of local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) - investment companies that build infrastructure projects - this year and the next will be most stressful for local governments, he said.

Around 380 billion yuan of onshore LGFV bonds from economically weaker provinces are due for repayment in the next 12 months, according to a Moody's report in August.

Such fiscal constraints, together with weakening exports, doubts over a consumption revival and external uncertainties including the Ukraine war, would add pressure on policymakers to shore up the economy in 2023, said Nie Wen, a Shanghai-based economist at Hwabao Trust.

Nie is forecasting GDP growth of 5.5% next year, assuming few or no COVID-19 disruptions, better than the broad 3.2%consensus for this year but still lagging the pre-pandemic 6.0% pace in 2019.

'HEAVY BURDEN'

Highlighting the pressure on finances, the provinces of Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Zhejiang as well as the municipality of Tianjin said they had all shed budgeted headcounts at government agencies in recent months.

Moreover, some grass-roots market regulators have even imposed excessively high fines on small businesses to boost revenue.

According to financial media outlet Yicai, local governments' revenue from fines and confiscations jumped 10.4% in January-July year-on-year.

Additional spending on containing COVID outbreaks has also strained local government finances.

The fiscal stress is cutting into some households' income, a red flag for consumption and broader growth.

"My annual income was slashed by 27% to around 80,000 yuan last year, due to the very heavy local fiscal burden," an employee surnamed Gao at a government agency in Chongqing told Reuters.

"Our leaders were very anxious these days as they said the current fiscal allocation is not enough at all. As there is no way out, they have had to ask the local government fiscal department for money."

 ($1 = 7.1135 Chinese yuan renminbi)

 (Reporting by Ellen Zhang and Ryan Woo; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

Translation

北京（路透社）- 無論如何，1萬億美元似乎是巨大的。這就是中國各省面臨的預算短缺規模，削弱了它們為基礎設施支出和減稅提供資金的財政上的火力，並增加了這個世界第二大經濟體在 2023 年面臨的風險。

對於北京的政策制定者來說，時機再糟糕不過了，因為其經濟處於全球衰退風險中搖擺不定、面對大宗商品成本飆升、地緣政治緊張局勢加劇,以及國內廣泛的 COVID-19 封鎖的重壓 - 破壞了將於週日召開的五年一度的執政的共產黨黨代會的背後環景。

長期以來，地方政府一直是中國經濟增長的動力，但在持續打擊國有土地銷售行業債務後，國有土地銷售收入下降, 嚴重削弱了方政府財政實力 - 今年，由於中國經濟增長疲軟、稅收收入軟弱以及新冠疫情嚴重限制，加劇了這情況。

地方政府還必須在未來幾個月償還債務，這預示著更多的財務痛苦，並限制了它們滿足北京方面增加支出要求的能力。他們許多人已經採取用削減工資、裁員、減少補貼, 甚至處以不成比例的巨額罰款等辦法來彌補預算短缺。

前八個月，中國 31 個省級地區的一般公共收入與支出之間的差距總計 6.74 萬億元人民幣（9480 億美元）。路透社根據過去十年地方政府數據的計算顯示，這是至少自 2012 年以來這一時期的最大，其中四川、河南、湖南和廣東等人口稠密省份的缺口最大。

同期，單獨計算的政府土地銷售同比下降 28.5% 至 3.37 萬億元，增加了要去恢復負債房地產公司財務健康的緊迫性。

穆迪分析師 Jennifer A. Wong 表示： “隨著今年增長放緩，我們預計地區和地方政府的財政赤字將依然巨大，這反映出房地產市場放緩和冠狀病毒衝擊的揮之不去的影響” ，並預計 2022 年經濟增長將從 2021 年的 8.1% 放緩至 3.5%。

過去，缺口在很大程度上被中央政府的轉移支付和前幾年的結轉資金所抵消，但分析師表示，經濟增長放緩可能會限制這一次的任何此類幫助。

政策制定者也將對通過大規模貨幣刺激來彌補財政疲軟持謹慎態度，因為有一全球加息浪潮用以遏制熾熱的通脹, 已導緻美國債券收益率飆升，擴大了美國和中國債券之間的收益率差距。

 債務壓力

Yuekai Securities 首席宏觀經濟分析師 Luo Zhiheng 表示，可以增加國債額度，以便將其中的一部分轉移到地方政府以緩解財政壓力。

然而，Luo警告說，隨著到期的地方政府債務在 2023 年達到 2021 年至 2025 年期間的峰值，他們本已緊張的現金流將面臨擠壓。

他說，再加上地方政府融資平台（LGFV）- 建設基礎設施項目的投資公司 - 的一些到期債務，今年和明年對地方政府來說將是最有壓力。

根據穆迪 8 月份的一份報告，未來 12 個月，來自經濟較弱省份的約 3,800 億元人民幣境內地方政府融資平台債券將在未來 12 個月內到期償還。

華寶信託駐上海經濟學家Nie Wen表示，此類財政制抓，加上出口疲軟、對消費復甦的疑慮以及包括烏克蘭戰爭在內的外部不確定性，將增加決策者在 2023 年提振經濟的壓力。

假設很少或沒有 COVID-19 干擾, Nie 預測明年 GDP 增長 5.5%，好過今年 3.2% 的廣泛共識，但仍落後於 2019 年大流行前 6.0% 的速度。

 '沉重負擔'

山東、山西、河南、浙江等省以及天津市突顯財政壓力，表示最近幾個月都在削減政府預算中的人數。

此外，一些基層市場監管機構甚至對小企業處以過高的罰款，以增加收入。

據財經媒體 Yicai 報導，1-7月地方政府罰款和沒收收入同比增長10.4%。

用於遏制 COVID 爆發的額外支出也使當地政府財政緊張。

財政壓力正在削減一些家庭的收入，這對消費和更廣泛的增長來說是一個危險信號。

重慶一家政府機構的姓Gao員工告訴路透社: “由於地方財政負擔非常重，去年我的年收入減少了 27% 至 8 萬元左右” 。

“我們的領導這幾天很著急，說現在的財政撥款根本不夠用，沒有出路，只好向當地財政部門要錢。”

So, there is a budget shortfall of about $1 trillion facing Chinese provinces, reducing their fiscal firepower to fund infrastructure spending and tax cuts, and raising financial difficulties for China in 2023. It seems that the Chinese economy is struggling under the weight of global recession risks, surging commodity costs, rising geopolitical tension and widespread COVID-19 lockdowns in the Mainland.