【英语财经】人民币汇率：中国今年面临的挑战 Renminbi weakness: China’s challenge for 2016

One of the Chinese government’s main challenges for 2016 will be managing the renminbi. The currency fell nearly 5 per cent against the dollar last year and heads into January weighted with expectations for more weakness.

There are certainly strong arguments for letting the renminbi continue to fall in 2016 but boosting the competitiveness of Chinese exporters apparently is not one of them.

According to the most recent monthly survey of exporting firms conducted by FT Confidential Research, a Financial Times research service, 56 per cent of exporter manufacturers said they were not worried about the impact of the renminbi exchange rate on their profits. This was below November’s 72 per cent — the highest proportion in the survey’s three-plus-year history — but well above the series average of 31 per cent.

In contrast, in January 2014, when renminbi strength against the dollar peaked, just 24 per cent of manufacturers said they were not worried against 76 per cent who said they were either worried or very worried.

During the life of the survey, respondents have consistently cited a lack of orders and/or other costs over the renminbi as the biggest challenges their businesses face.

These results highlight the external demand problems that have dogged China’s exporters since the global financial crisis.

Advocates of depreciation argue that a weaker renminbi is needed to boost a flagging economy. A recent International Monetary Fund study estimated that a 10 per cent depreciation of an economy’s real effective exchange rate translates into an average boost in its real net exports equal to 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product.

The renminbi rose 0.87 per cent on a trade-weighted basis in 2015, the manager of China’s foreign exchange market said in its last calculation of the year.

Official rhetoric suggests the government is not on board with the view that depreciation can provide meaningful support for exporters. China’s Ministry of Commerce, once a key advocate of using the exchange rate to help exporters, now says the impact of a weaker renminbi would be diluted because of China’s role in the Asian value chain.

Depreciation means paying more for the components China imports for processing while there is not much that a cheaper currency can do if the buyers are not there. This is a view supported by separate studies conducted by the World Bank and by EM Squared (the rise of global value chains weakens, but does not sever, the link between depreciation and trade flows, the IMF study contends).

But the government’s failure to articulate its exchange rate policy has stirred global concerns that China has officially adopted a policy of devaluing the renminbi in order to boost trade competitiveness.

According to this narrative, the 1.9 per cent devaluation on August 11 was just the beginning of a process and the renminbi’s striking weakness in the fourth quarter of 2015 marked its continuation.

The government dismisses the idea that it is engaged in a currency war. Markets may be betting that the renminbi is overvalued but the government continues to insist there is no basis for continuing depreciation.

But China does face monetary pressures that argue for loosening its control of the exchange rate.

The government tried in 2015 to manage currency depreciation while avoiding any sharp drops that threaten to worsen the rush for the exits. Critics of this approach insist China will not be able to staunch capital outflows and regain control of its monetary policy until it loosens up on the renminbi.

The widening gap between the offshore and onshore renminbi rates reflects a lack of faith among the global investment community in official pledges to maintain exchange rate stability.

Foreign exchange reserves fell over $400bn last year as the monetary authority tried to defend the renminbi. That still leaves $3.4tn in reserves but confidence in the government’s ability to hold the line on the currency will erode as that pile continues to fall.

The Chinese government may be distancing itself from calls to competitively weaken the renminbi but the health of the export sector will not be its main consideration in how it handles the exchange rate in 2016.

中国政府在2016年面临的主要挑战之一将是管理人民币汇率。人民币兑美元汇率去年下跌近5%，进入1月份以来人民币汇率继续承受看跌压力。

让人民币在2016年继续下跌当然有充足的理由，但提升中国出口商的竞争力似乎不在其中。

英国《金融时报》旗下研究服务部门“投资参考”(FT Confidential Research)对出口企业的最近一次月度调查表明，56%的出口商表示它们不担心人民币汇率对利润的影响。这个比例低于去年11月调查时的72%（该调查实施3年多以来的最高比例），但远高于31%的平均比例。

相比之下，在2014年1月人民币兑美元汇率达到峰值之际，只有24%的制造商表示它们不担心汇率影响，而76%的制造商表示它们有些担心或者非常担心。

在历次调查中，受访者一直将订单匮乏和（或）其他成本、而不是人民币列为企业面临的最大挑战。

这些结果突显出自全球金融危机以来一直困扰中国出口商的外部需求问题。

主张人民币贬值的人士辩称，有必要贬值人民币来支持日益放缓的经济。国际货币基金组织(IMF)最近的研究表明，一个经济体的实际有效汇率贬值10%，平均可以对实际净出口产生相当于1.5%国内生产总值(GDP)的提振。

中国外汇交易中心(CFETS)最近公布的人民币汇率指数（贸易加权平均汇率）显示，人民币在2015年累计升值0.94%。

官方论调表明，中国政府并不认同贬值可以对出口商提供有意义支持的观点。中国商务部曾经是主张利用汇率来帮助出口商的关键角色，现在该部表示，因为中国在亚洲价值链中的角色，人民币贬值的影响将被冲淡。

贬值意味着中国要为加工用进口部件支付更高的价格，同时如果没有买家，货币贬值也起不到太大作用。世界银行(World Bank)和英国《金融时报》“直击新兴市场”栏目(EM Squared)分别进行的研究证实了这个观点（IMF的研究则主张，全球价值链的崛起削弱但没有切断贬值与贸易流动之间的联系）。

但中国政府未能明确阐述其汇率政策，这让全球担心，中国正式采纳了通过人民币贬值来提升贸易竞争力的政策。



按照上述说法，去年8月11日人民币贬值1.9%仅仅是开始，人民币在2015年第四季度的显著疲弱表明贬值仍在持续。

中国政府否认其在参与一场汇率战争。市场可能在押注于人民币被高估了，但中国政府继续坚称，人民币没有持续贬值的基础。

但中国确实面临货币政策方面的压力，这种压力说明应该放松汇率控制。

2015年，中国政府努力在让人民币贬值的同时避免大幅贬值（大幅贬值可能会加剧资本出逃）。对这种做法持批评态度的人士坚称，在松绑人民币汇率之前，中国将无法阻止资本外流并恢复对货币政策的控制。

离岸人民币与在岸人民币汇率之间的差额不断扩大，反映出全球投资界对中国官方保持汇率稳定的承诺缺乏信心。

随着中国货币当局努力捍卫人民币汇率，外汇储备去年下降逾4000亿美元。虽然中国还有3.4万亿美元的外汇储备，但随着外汇储备持续缩水，外界对中国政府坚守对人民币立场的能力会逐渐失去信心。

中国政府可能没有理睬人民币竞争性贬值的呼吁，但在考虑2016年如何处理汇率问题的时候，出口部门的健康状况将不是它的主要考量。

译者/邹策