中國房地產遭遇人口結構預警

China’s previously overheated property market has been in the doldrums for most of this year but things are likely to get a lot worse, because of demographic shifts that are about to reverse a main driver of the decades-long boom.

中國先前過熱的房地產市場在今年大部分時間持續低迷，但今後可能會更加糟糕，因爲過去數十年房地產繁榮的主要推動因素——人口結構即將發生變化。

According to newly published research, the size of China’s main property-buying population — people aged 25 to 49 — will peak next year and then start to decline, just as a huge glut of new apartments hits the market.

根據新公佈的研究報告，中國購房主力人口（25歲至49歲之間人羣）將在明年達到峯值，隨後就會開始下降，而與此同時還有大量超過需求數量的新公寓投放市場。

This demographic will shrink drastically from 2018, with the number of urban homebuying Chinese falling much faster than contemporaries from the countryside, who are far less likely to have the means to buy expensive apartments, according to Ai Jingwei, an expert on Chinese real estate and author of the research.

中國房地產專家、報告作者艾經緯表示，購房人口數量將從2018年起大幅下降，城市購房者人數下降速度將遠遠超過同時期的農村購房者，而且後者有能力購買昂貴公寓房的可能性也要低得多。

The real estate sector has been the most important driver of growth in the world’s second-largest economy for most of the past decade, as house prices soared and construction of apartments mushroomed across the entire country.

在過去十年的大部分時間裏，房地產業一直是這個全球第二大經濟體最重要的增長引擎，在此期間中國房價飆升，新開工樓盤在全國遍地開花。

Moody’s Analytics estimates the building, sale and outfitting of apartments accounted for 23 per cent of Chinese gross domestic product last year.

據穆迪分析(Moody’s Analytics)估計，去年房地產的建造、銷售和配套佔到中國國內生產總值(GDP)的23%。

The long-term health of the property sector is still seen as crucial to maintaining the high growth rates to which China has become accustomed.

中國已習慣了高增長率，房地產行業的長遠健康仍被視爲保持高增長率的關鍵因素。

But after years of white-hot growth, Chinese property sales fell 10 per cent in the first 10 months of 2014 from a year earlier, prompting the steepest annual drop in nationwide prices in October since the data series began in 2011.

但在多年過熱增長之後，中國房地產銷售在今年前十個月同比下降10%，促使10月全國房價出現自2011年官方開始發佈這項數據（即國家統計局發佈的70個大中城市新建商品住宅銷售價格變動情況——譯者注）以來的同比最大跌幅。

Still, the fall in volumes and prices has so far been relatively mild and developers across China have continued to expand their inventories, albeit at a slower pace, in the hopes of a recovery next year and beyond.

然而，房地產銷量和價格的下跌迄今仍相對溫和，中國各地的房地產開發商寄望於明年乃至更遠的未來市場會出現復甦，仍在繼續擴大庫存，儘管步伐有所放緩。

Most analysts argue this worsening oversupply is the biggest threat to China’s all-important property market.

房地產市場對中國至關重要，大多數分析師認爲，這種日益惡化的過度供應是房地產市場面臨的最大威脅。

“Developers are currently sitting on 5.6m units of unsold property, according to official statistics, a figure that has almost doubled in the space of two years,” says Mark Williams, economist at Capital Economics. “In reality the overhang is probably even larger.”

凱投宏觀(Capital Economics)經濟學家馬克•威廉姆斯(Mark Williams)表示：“官方統計數據顯示，目前開發商手中的待售商品房數量高達560萬套，這一數字在兩年的時間裏幾乎翻了一番。實際的待售商品房數量甚至可能還不止這麼多。”

Mr Ai calculates that China probably now has more than seven years worth of unsold real estate inventory. But he argues that a shrinking pool of potential homebuyers is an even more worrying long-term challenge.

艾經緯估算，中國現在待售和在建的住宅很可能需要7年多時間才能消化完。但他認爲，從長期來看，潛在購房人口縮減是更令人擔憂的挑戰。

“From 2015 China’s house-buying demographic will start to shrink and the property market will undergo a structural shift in demand,” Mr Ai told the Financial Times. “We are actually likely to see a serious structural shortfall in purchasing power.”

艾經緯向英國《金融時報》表示：“從2015年開始，中國購房年齡人口數量將開始下降，房地產市場將經歷需求結構改變，事實上，我們有可能看到購買力出現嚴重的結構性短缺。”

He calculates the number of people in China in the 25 to 49 age group will peak next year at about 568m, before dropping to 543m in 2020 and falling below 500m by 2025, compared with 547m in 2010.

他估計，中國25歲至49歲人口數量將在明年達到5.68億的峯值，隨後在2020年降至5.43億，到2025年降至5億以下，而在2010年該數據是5.47億人。

China’s official working-age population (people aged 15-59) peaked in 2012 and has shrunk by several million in each of the past two years, according to government statistics.

政府統計數據顯示，中國勞動年齡人口（15歲至59歲之間）的官方數據在2012年達到峯值，並在過去兩年裏每年下降數百萬人。

This demographic shift has been exacerbated by the one-child policy introduced in the late 1970s and early 1980s to control the country’s population.

中國在上世紀70年代末和80年代初、爲控制人口數量而出臺的計劃生育政策，加劇了人口結構變化形勢的惡化。

The shift has already been manifested in tighter labour markets and higher wages in many sectors.

勞動力市場趨緊和許多行業工資上漲已經體現了這種轉變。

One of the more alarming revelations from Mr Ai’s research is the apparent correlation between a declining working-age population and the bursting of real estate bubbles in other countries in the past.

艾經緯的研究報告中更令人不安的發現之一是，歷史上其他國家勞動年齡人口下降和房地產泡沫破裂之間看上去存在相關性。

The most obvious and disturbing example from China’s perspective is that of Japan, which saw its working-age population peak in 1992, just one year after an enormous real estate bubble began to deflate.

從中國的角度來說，最明顯且最令人不安的例子是日本的房地產市場，後者的勞動年齡人口在1992年達到峯值，僅僅一年後巨大的房地產泡沫就開始破裂。