人民幣資產即將出現鉅變 China's SDR push raises prospect of shift into renminbi assets
The turbulence in the Chinese stock market — where heavy support operations by the Chinese authorities seemed to be turning the tide up to this week’s renewed weakness — is an unpromising backcloth for one of Beijing’s priorities in the international economic field.
對於中國政府在國際經濟領域的首要任務之一來說，國內股市的劇烈波動是指望不上的。中國當局的強力託市舉措似乎一度在令股市止跌回升——直到上週再次疲軟。
China’s aim is to bring the renminbi into the special drawing right, the currency unit of the International Monetary Fund, under a review process due to be concluded at the end of the year. Introducing the Chinese money into the SDR — joining the dollar, euro, yen and sterling — could enhance the SDR’s attractiveness for borrowers and investors. But, as an artificial currency that needs to be “decomposed” into its parts before it can be traded on financial markets, the SDR has never caught investors’ favour.
中國的目標，是令人民幣能夠在經過審查後被納入特別提款權(SDR)——即國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)使用的貨幣單位。這一審查過程將於今年底得出結論。將人民幣納入SDR，從而加入美元、歐元、日元和英鎊的行列，可能會提高SDR對借款方和投資者的吸引力。不過，作爲一種需“分解”成其組成貨幣，才能在金融市場中交易的人爲貨幣，SDR從未受到投資者青睞。
For the SDR to gain momentum in borrowing and investment, it would need to become a currency in its own right, similar to the development of the European currency unit, used in the bond markets from the late 1970s onwards. The Ecu’s bond deployment accelerated in the 1990s as the countdown to the transformation into the euro got under way. An analogous journey for the SDR looks unlikely.
與歐洲貨幣單位的發展類似，要想令SDR貨幣能夠在借貸和投資活動中得到更廣泛應用，它還需要成爲一種依靠自身本領的貨幣。從上世紀70年代末以來，歐洲貨幣單位就一直用於債券市場。而在上世紀90年代，在向歐元轉型的過程處於倒計時之際，對歐洲貨幣單位債券資產的配置纔出現了加速。相比之下，SDR看起來卻不太可能出現類似變化。
A more likely bond market beneficiary of a wider SDR would be the renminbi itself. In the short run, a positive decision on the SDR and the renminbi would probably prompt a further $100bn worth of official buying of renminbi-denominated assets. Longer term, the figure would be much greater — raising the question of how supply of good-quality renminbi assets could be increased to meet this extra demand.
如果SDR貨幣得到更廣泛地應用，債券市場中更有可能的受益者將是人民幣自身。從短期來說，對SDR和人民幣的積極評價，可能會促使官方渠道多買入價值1000億美元的以人民幣計價的資產。從更長時期來說，這一數字將會大得多，從而引發如何才能增加高品質人民幣資產的供應量、以滿足這種額外需求的問題。
By contrast to the artificial SDR, the renminbi is becoming much more real for investors around the world. A decision on the Chinese currency’s inclusion in the SDR will depend on the IMF’s assessment of the renminbi’s free usability on world financial markets and in official transactions. Although Beijing is progressively making the renminbi more convertible for capital transactions, the Chinese authorities are keeping capital controls in place, for fear that undue liberalisation would harm financial stability. The vast share purchases by the state-owned China Securities Finance Corporation, along with restrictions on share selling implemented to stem the June market rout, might be seen as interfering with the renminbi’s usability.
與人爲建立的SDR貨幣不同的是，人民幣對全世界的投資者正變得更加真實。將人民幣納入SDR的決定，將取決於IMF對人民幣在全球金融市場和官方交易中自由可用程度的評估。雖然中國政府正在大力提高資本項目下人民幣的可兌換性，但由於擔心過度自由化會傷害金融穩定性，中國當局仍在實施資本管制。爲阻止6月份股市的暴跌，國有的中國證券金融公司(China Securities Finance Corporation)買入大量股票的行爲，以及中國政府對股票拋售的限制，都可能被視爲干擾人民幣可用性的行爲。
Approval for renminbi inclusion would be of enormous symbolic value to Beijing, reinforcing its effort to turn the renminbi into an international hard currency and to challenge western dominance of global monetary governance. More specifically, it could trigger a large shift of global institutional assets into renminbi.
人民幣被批准納入SDR，對中國政府來說將有着巨大的象徵意義。中國政府正努力將人民幣變爲全球硬通貨，挑戰西方在全球貨幣治理中的統治地位。人民幣被納入SDR，會令中國政府的上述努力得到加強。更具體地說來，它或將引發全球機構資產向人民幣的大規模遷移。
The renminbi’s sharp rise on world currency markets — up 13 per cent in real (inflation-adjusted) trade-weighted terms over the past 12 months — is a key factor, explaining why the IMF now says the currency is fairly valued internationally. Already, the renminbi has become de facto a reserve currency. On rough calculations, there may be about $100bn of renminbi reserves in central bank holdings, about half the total held in Canadian and Australian dollars, according to IMF estimates. On this basis, an SDR inclusion decision could spark a further $100bn worth of renminbi purchases by central banks. This is not a huge figure compared with the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum estimate of global official sector assets of $30tn, and daily foreign exchange turnover estimated by the Bank for International Settlements at $5.3tn. But shifts of this nature would be a milestone, especially if such movements follow in the private sector.
人民幣在全球外匯市場的急劇升值也是個重要因素，解釋了爲何IMF如今會表示人民幣在國際上得到了正確估值。過去12個月內，人民幣經通脹調整後的實際貿易加權匯率上升了13%。目前，人民幣已成爲一種事實上的儲備貨幣。根據IMF的估計，在各國央行持有的資產中，粗略估算大約有1000億美元的人民幣儲備資產，約爲加拿大元和澳元儲備資產總量的一半。而將人民幣納入SDR的決定，可能會在此基礎上，進一步促使各國央行再買入價值1000億美元的人民幣資產。目前，官方貨幣與金融機構論壇(Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum)對全球官方部門的資產規模估計爲30萬億美元，而國際清算銀行(Bank for International Settlements)對全球每日外匯成交量的估計則爲5.3萬億美元。與它們相比，1000億美元並不算個大數字。然而，人民幣這一屬性上的改變會成爲一個里程碑，尤其是如果私人部門也隨即採取同樣舉措的話。
The overall renminbi bond market, including public and private sector debt, is estimated at about Rmb35.9tn, says Goldman Sachs, the third-largest after the US and Japan. There may be a shortage of renminbi-denominated investable assets for world central banks in coming years. Chinese government borrowers are unlikely to generate significant issuance in coming years. So part of the demand from worldwide central banks may have to come from renminbi issuance by top-rated agencies such as the World Bank as well as sovereign governments, where the British government gave a lead last year with a Rmb3bn issue.
高盛(Goldman Sachs)表示，包括公共部門債券和私營部門債券在內，人民幣債券市場的總體規模估計爲大約35.9萬億元人民幣，是僅次於美國和日本的全球第三大債市。今後幾年內，對於全球央行來說，可能會出現以人民幣計價的可投資資產短缺的現象。今後幾年，中國政府部門的借款方不太可能發行很多債券。因此，全球央行需求的一部分，可能將不得不由世界銀行(World Bank)及各主權政府等評級最高的機構發行的人民幣債券來滿足。其中，英國政府去年帶頭髮行了30億元人民幣的債券。
If the renminbi enters the SDR, expect more such bonds from western governments in coming years.
如果人民幣被納入SDR，預計今後幾年西方國家政府將發行更多此類債券。
