【英语财经】人民币国际化路上的“长短腿”现象 Trade propels renminbi on route to global reserve currency

When discussing the internationalisation of China’s renminbi, Denis Shulakov, first vice-president of Gazprombank in Moscow, is fond of quoting Wayne Gretzky, the former Canadian ice hockey player and coach.

“You don’t need to be where the puck is, you need to be where the puck is going to be,” he says.

Gazprombank, like many Russian banks, is furiously working to set up operations in both Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland in preparation for conducting more trade and finance in China’s renminbi: “All the Russian corporates who are key clients of the bank are moving in this direction,” explains Mr Shulakov, who says his organisation expects to be the first Russian bank to obtain a broker dealer licence in Hong Kong.

There is a good reason why Russian companies would be showing a keen interest in China’s currency for both trade settlement and finance: sanctions against Russia have frozen access to funds in the west. But for other banks and companies around the world, the reasons are just as compelling.

The past five years have seen a surge into the renminbi as a way to settle trade with the world’s largest exporter, a trend enthusiastically supported by Beijing as a means to push its long-declared goal of having a global reserve currency, commensurate with the dollar, the yen and the euro.

Already 22 per cent of China’s trade is being settled in renminbi, up from 8 per cent in 2012 and zero five years ago, according to estimates by Citi.

Bruce Alter, head of trade and receivables finance for HSBC in China, reels off a list of companies that he has worked with to do deals in renminbi: an Australian seafood exporter, a Malaysian palm oil producer, a Chinese bus manufacturer selling to Brazil, a Canadian furniture retailer and an Australian seafood supplier.

“If you look at Rmb trade flows 2-3 years ago, it was really dominated by Hong Kong China trade, but you see today, although there is still a lot of Hong Kong in the mix, there are more companies from more markets getting into the Rmb game,” he said.

He says the main benefit of using the renminbi is that for large importers (often retailers) it is cheaper – it removes the foreign exchange margin from the contract and often Chinese companies will offer a discount of 1-2 per cent if buyers pay in renminbi.

As for overseas sellers, agreeing to trade in renminbi gives them a better chance of penetrating the Chinese market. One additional motivation is that if overseas sellers already have operations in China, they can use the renminbi export proceeds to cover their Chinese operational costs.

In addition to hubs such as Hong Kong, Singapore and London, many more countries are now also involved in offshore renminbi, with China actively promoting greater adoption of its currency in trade and finance. Central banks in countries as far apart as Malaysia, Nigeria and Chile hold part of their foreign exchange reserves in renminbi. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has set up dozens of arrangements with its counterparts around the world, allowing it to swap renminbi for those parties’ currencies.

“On the trade and commerce aspect, the currency is fully liberal,” says Sandip Patil, Citi’s Asia managing director for global liquidity and investments. “Any company can use Rmb whichever way they like to conduct international trade and associated working capital financing.”

He adds: “Many times you are able to negotiate larger discounts with your suppliers if you are paying in Rmb” because paying in foreign currency creates procedural bottlenecks and delays.

But compared with its surging use in trade, the renminbi still has little take-up in capital markets, despite concerted efforts by the Chinese government. This is mainly because of continuing restrictions on the ability to convert and transfer the currency.

Once it obtains a broker license in Hong Kong, Gazprombank is keen to access what it estimates to be a $6tn pool of finance in the onshore China market through “Panda bonds”, a Chinese renminbi-denominated bond issued in China by a non-Chinese issuer. “The only problem with the yuan is conversion and transfer,” says Mr Shulakov. “If you have onshore yuan you cannot freely convert it and transfer it.”

Zhou Xiaochuan, China’s central bank governor, has said it is committed to liberalising China’s capital account, but stops short of wanting the renminbi to be fully and freely convertible in capital markets transactions. In a speech in April, Mr Xiaochuan used the term “managed convertibility”.

Meanwhile, discussion with the International Monetary Fund over including the renminbi in the basket of currencies used to denominate the IMF’s special drawing rights (SDRs) would open the way for reserve currency status, if the Fund gave a green light during its five year review in November. But many are sceptical that this will happen.

Dennis Tan, foreign exchange strategist for Barclays, said China has met only a few of the prerequisites for being an SDR currency and that the low usage of Rmb in international financial transactions is a potential hindrance. “In volume of trade flows and exports, obviously China has made it into the club,” he says, But in other measures, such as currency denomination of international banking liabilities and or global reserves, the Rmb still falls short, he says.

Mr Shulakov, though, is optimistic. “We are yet to experience the opening up of the Chinese local market,” he says, “but it is going to happen, inevitably. So we are in discussions and we are preparing ourselves for this, just as the Morgan Stanleys and Goldman Sachs of this world are doing.”

谈起人民币国际化的话题时，俄罗斯天然气工业银行股份公司(Gazprombank)第一副总裁丹尼斯?舒拉科夫(Denis Shulakov)喜欢引用加拿大前冰球运动员和教练韦恩?格雷茨基(Wayne Gretzky)的话。

“你不必出现在冰球所在的位置，你要出现在它将要到达的位置，”他说。

与其他多家俄罗斯银行一样，总部在莫斯科的Gazprombank正紧锣密鼓地推进在中国内地和香港开设业务的事宜，为进一步开展人民币贸易和融资业务做准备：“属于我行关键客户的所有俄罗斯企业，都在朝着这个方向迈进，”舒拉科夫解释说。他表示，Gazprombank期待成为在香港获得经纪自营商(broker dealer)牌照的第一家俄罗斯银行。

俄罗斯企业有一个很好的理由对使用人民币进行贸易结算和融资表现出浓厚兴趣：针对俄罗斯的制裁，冻结了该国企业在西方的融资渠道。但对世界上其他地区的银行和企业而言，对人民币感兴趣的理由同样充足。

过去5年里，使用人民币与世界最大出口国中国进行贸易结算的现象激增。这一趋势得到了中国政府的大力支持，以推动一个宣称已久的目标——即把人民币打造成与美元、日元和欧元相媲美的全球储备货币。

据花旗(Citi)估计，目前中国对外贸易中已经有22%使用人民币结算。2012年时这个比例为8%，5年前为零。

汇丰(HSBC)中国区贸易与应收账款融资业务主管布鲁斯?奥尔特(Bruce Alter)随口就举出了他合作过的使用人民币结算贸易的多家公司：一家澳大利亚海产品出口商、一家马来西亚棕榈油生产商、一家对巴西出口的中国公共汽车生产商、一家加拿大家具零售商和一家澳大利亚海产品供应商。

“如果你看两三年前的人民币贸易流动，那真的就是以香港和内地之间的贸易为主，但今天再来看，尽管对香港贸易仍占很大比例，但有来自更多市场的更多公司开始使用人民币，”他说。

他说，使用人民币的主要好处是，对于大型进口商（通常是零售商），这么做的成本更低——合同里没有了外汇保证金这一项，而且买家以人民币付款的话，中国公司经常会给予1%至2%的价格折扣。

至于境外卖家，如果同意接受人民币付款，就会有更好的机会向中国市场渗透。另一个动机是，如果境外卖家已经在中国市场开展经营活动，他们可以将出口所得人民币用作在华运营成本。

随着中国积极推动人民币在贸易与融资中的使用，除了香港、新加坡和伦敦等离岸人民币中心以外，还有其他许多国家如今也参与离岸人民币业务。即使是马来西亚、尼日利亚和智利等远一些的国家，它们的央行也都有部分人民币计值的外汇储备资产。中国央行(PBoC)已与全球多家央行建立了数十项货币互换安排机制。

“在贸易和商业方面，人民币是完全自由的，”花旗亚太区负责全球流动性和投资业务的董事总经理桑狄普?帕蒂尔(Sandip Patil)说。“任何公司都可以按照任何他们喜欢的方式，使用人民币从事国际贸易，以及进行相关的运营资本融资。”

他接着说：“如果你用人民币付款的话，你屡屡能跟供应商谈成更大的价格折扣，”因为以外币支付会有程序障碍，造成延误。

但与在贸易中使用激增相比，人民币在资本市场的接受度仍非常低，尽管中国政府付出了很大努力。这主要是因为人民币在兑换与转账方面仍然存在限制。

一旦在香港拿到经纪商牌照，Gazprombank希望进入中国在岸“熊猫债券”市场，这是境外发行主体在中国境内发行的人民币计价债券，Gazprombank估计这个资金池有6万亿美元。“人民币的唯一问题是兑换与转账，”舒拉科夫说。“如果你在中国境内拥有人民币，你是不能自由进行兑换和转账的。”

中国央行行长周小川曾表态中国致力于资本账户自由化，但实际上仍没有让人民币在资本市场交易中实现完全自由可兑换。在今年4月的一次讲话中，周小川提出了“有管理的可自由兑换”说法。

另一方面，与国际货币基金组织(IMF)围绕将人民币纳入特别提款权(SDR)货币篮子的谈判，有望为人民币获得储备货币地位扫清道路，如果IMF在今年11月结束五年一次的审议时对人民币打开绿灯的话。但许多人怀疑IMF会在这个时候将人民币纳入SDR。

巴克莱(Barclays)外汇策略师丹尼斯?塔恩(Dennis Tan)表示，要成为SDR货币，中国只有几个条件达标，一个潜在障碍是人民币在国际金融交易中使用较少。他说：“从贸易流动和出口方面看，中国明显已达到进入这个俱乐部的标准。”他说，但在其他衡量标准上，比如在国际银行债务或全球储备的货币计值方面，人民币仍然有差距。

不过，Gazprombank的舒拉科夫抱着乐观态度。“我们还没有经历中国国内市场的开放，”他说，“但这是必然要发生的。所以我们正在谈判，我们自己正为此做准备，就像摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)和高盛(Goldman Sachs)所做的那样。”

译者/邢嵬