【英语财经】人民币贬值乃“必要之恶”？ China devaluation – a necessary evil?

The 9 percent drop in global equity prices in the first two weeks of 2016 is certainly alarming, even for those of us who believe that the outlook for the world activity has not deteriorated much recently. The fundamental cause is the same as it was last August – a clash between a severe loss of credibility in Chinese economic policy and a Federal Reserve that still seems determined to continue tightening US monetary policy without much regard to international risks and a slowing domestic economy (see the hawkish Bill Dudley speech on Friday). Oil prices are also playing a part, but only a bit part, in my view.

The key question is whether China can restore confidence in its exchange rate policy, not least among its own citizens. For as long as a renminbi devaluation of unknown size continues to overhang the markets, an abatement in capital outflows, and a return to stability, seems difficult.

It is even possible that the event that markets most fear – a controlled depreciation of 10 per cent or so – might be the only way of restoring calm, if accompanied by other reforms. Until the renminbi is deemed by the global financial system to be at a sustainable level, fear of disruptive change will dominate sentiment.

The PBOC does not seem to agree. Last week, it finally intervened in the foreign exchange markets with enough conviction to halt the recent depreciation, temporarily at least. The new exchange rate regime has now been spelled out in some detail. The central bank has decided to maintain a “relatively stable” renminbi against a basket of foreign currencies, while allowing much greater flexibility than before against the dollar.

But it has also said that, in the longer term, the exchange rate against the basket may be allowed to move, in line with changing economic fundamentals. The central bank clearly wants the exchange rate to become gradually more market determined, as it shifts to a monetary system where domestic money market rates are used as the main instrument of monetary policy.

This makes good sense, except that the present level of the exchange rate does not command market confidence. In part, this is because there is so much suspicion that the State Council, not the PBOC, is ultimately in charge of exchange rate policy. There is continued speculation in the markets, whether true or not, that President Xi Jinping’s economic staff believes a devaluation will be needed to restore stability. This, and the expectation of an imminent tightening in controls over outward capital movements by Chinese households, is leading to a rush for the exits.

The Economist has calculated that if only 5 percent of China’s population decides to take advantage of the $50,000 annual limit on foreign investment, the outflow in 2016 would be equivalent to the whole of China’s $3.3tn in foreign exchange reserves. The reserves have already fallen by almost $700bn since the peak, and the rate of decline is showing no sign of abating.

So is it now clear that the renminbi is fundamentally overvalued and needs to fall? The PBOC denies this, pointing out that the current account of the balance of payments remains in comfortable surplus, and that long term capital flows are also still in the black. Indeed, it describes the possibility of devaluation as “ridiculous and impossible”, concluding that "there is not a basis for the RMB to devalue continuously. It will remain strong among the reserve currencies".

The authorities clearly have no desire to be accused of “competitive devaluation” by the US, especially in an American election year. Nor do they want to increase the cost of foreign currency debt, measured in renminbi. Latest estimates suggest that foreign debt stands at about $1.5tn, so a 10 per cent devaluation could increase its domestic value by about 1.5 per cent of GDP, according to Goldman Sachs. Finally, there little sign of a generalised hard landing in the economy at present, which would make a devaluation unavoidable.

However, there is a severe problem in the shape of the rebalancing of the economy away from old manufacturing sectors towards the new economy. Western economists have tended to see this as a silver lining in the recent economic history of China, arguing that the economy is successfully shifting resources towards the sectors that will dominate its future. But a careful look at the data suggest that this is far from the whole story:

The optimists point to the rise in the share of services in nominal GDP, and the corresponding decline in industrial sectors, as shown in the above left graph. Measured in current prices, the rebalancing appears to be well underway, with the share of industrial sectors falling from 47 per cent in 2011 to 40 per cent now.

However, almost the whole of this rebalancing in nominal terms has occurred because of a large drop in the relative price of industrial products compared to services. In real, inflation adjusted terms (above right graph), there has been no rebalancing whatsoever in the past decade taken as a whole (though there has been a percent or two in 2014-15). The needed shift in real resources – labour and capital – out of the moribund sectors has therefore barely started.

This conundrum is explained by the collapse in industrial goods prices that has occurred as excess industrial capacity has built up in the Chinese economy. Although this has happened in most manufacturing sectors, it has been at its most severe at the low-value added end – ie in heavy goods industries that are probably now making significant losses but are still being propped up by the state.

Most other economies, both developed and emerging, are experiencing negative producer price inflation as commodity prices have collapsed, but the size of the industrial sector in China makes it a particular problem there, and it has been exacerbated by the rising renminbi in 2013-15.

In the Central Economic Work Conference in December, President Xi firmly established “supply side reform” as the new buzz word for policy in 2016. That means that excess capacity will be tackled by plant closures and job losses, offset by easier fiscal and monetary policy.

In a western economy, it would be taken for granted that such a programme would be accompanied by a drop in the real exchange rate as overall monetary conditions are loosened. Flexible, market determined exchange rates can go down as well as up. Perhaps that is also becoming a necessary evil in China.

Gavyn Davies is a macroeconomist who is now chairman of Fulcrum Asset Management and co-founder of Prisma Capital Partners.

在2016年的头两周内，全球股市下跌9%，这当然是令人震惊的，即使是对于我们中那些认为世界经济活动前景近来并未大幅恶化的人来说也是如此。根本原因与去年8月股灾的原因一样，在于这样一个矛盾：一方面是中国经济政策的可信度严重下降，另一方面是美联储似乎仍然决心继续收紧美国货币政策，而不太考虑国际风险和国内经济放缓（参见上周五鹰派的比尔?达德利(Bill Dudley)发表的演讲）。油价也起到了部分作用，但是，依我看来，只起到了一小部分作用。

关键问题在于中国能否重拾人们（尤其是其公民）对其汇率政策的信心。因为只要人民币以未知幅度贬值的阴云继续笼罩市场，似乎就很难减缓资本流出，恢复稳定。

如果配以其他改革，市场最担心的事情——在受控的情况下贬值10%左右——甚至有可能是恢复平静的唯一方式。在全球金融体系认为人民币汇率已经达到可持续的水平之前，对破坏性变动的担忧将主导市场情绪。

中国央行对此似乎并不认同。上周，中国央行终于以足够坚决的力度干预汇市，至少暂时遏制了人民币近期的贬值趋势。眼下新的汇率形成机制已经得到了相当详细的阐明。中国央行决定维持人民币对一篮子货币“相对稳定”，同时允许人民币对美元比之前更具有弹性。

但是，央行也表示，从长远来看，或许会允许人民币汇率相对一篮子货币浮动，顺应经济基本面的变化。中国央行明显希望人民币汇率逐渐更多地由市场决定，它也在转向新的货币体系，把国内货币市场利率用作主要的货币政策工具。

这很有道理——只是目前的汇率水平无法令市场重拾信心。从某种程度而言，这是由于有太多人怀疑，中国国务院（而非中国央行）最终负责汇率政策。市场一直存在一种推测——无论正确与否——即中国国家主席习近平的经济幕僚认为人民币贬值是恢复稳定所必需的。这种推测，加上人们预期政府即将对中国家庭的资本流出收紧控制，导致了目前的资本外流潮。

根据《经济学人》(The Economist)的计算，如果5%的中国人口决定利用每年5万美元的外汇限购政策，2016年的资本流出将相当于中国全部3.3万亿美元的外汇储备。中国外汇储备已经从峰值下降了近7000亿美元，且下降速度没有减缓的迹象。

那么，人民币是不是明显从根本上被高估，需要下跌？中国央行否认这一点，指出中国国际收支的经常账户仍然保持宽裕的顺差，长期资本流动也仍然处于顺差状态。的确，中国央行把人民币贬值的可能性描述为“荒谬而不可能的”，得出结论称“人民币不存在继续贬值的基础，在储备货币中人民币将保持强劲”。

中国当局显然不希望被美国指责为“进行竞争性贬值”，特别是在美国大选年。他们也不希望增加以人民币计算的外币债务成本。据高盛(Goldman Sachs)分析，最近的估算似乎表明，中国的外债水平约为1.5万亿美元，因此人民币贬值10%可能会使这些债务的国内价值与国内生产总值(GDP)之比上升约1.5个百分点。最后，眼下几乎没有迹象表明中国经济会出现全面硬着陆，进而导致人民币不可避免地贬值。

然而，从传统的制造业转向新经济的经济再平衡在形态上存在一个严重问题。西方经济学家倾向于将经济再平衡视为中国近年经济史上的一线希望，称中国经济正在成功地将资源转向那些将会主导其未来的行业。但是，仔细看一下数据就会发现，这远非故事的全部：

乐观主义者指出，服务业在名义GDP中的占比有所上升，同时工业部门占比相应下降，如上面左图所示。按当前价格衡量，经济再平衡似乎正在顺利展开，工业部门占GDP的比重已从2011年的47%降至如今的40%。



然而，这种名义基础上的再平衡几乎全是由于工业产品相对于服务业价格大幅下滑而出现的。在经通胀调整的实际基础上（上面右图），过去10年整体上没有出现任何再平衡（尽管2014-15年出现了1%或2%的再平衡）。实际资源（劳动力和资本）从死气沉沉的行业转向其他行业的必要转移只是刚刚开始。

这个谜题可以由工业产品价格（中国经济中逐渐累积的工业产能过剩的结果）崩盘来解释。尽管多数制造业都出现了这种情况，但是附加值较低的行业问题最严重，比如如今很可能遭受重大亏损但仍然受到国家支撑的重工业。

随着大宗商品价格大幅下降，其他多数经济体（无论是发达经济体还是新兴经济体）都在经历生产者价格指数的负增长，但是中国工业部门的规模使之成为格外突出的问题，而2013年至2015年期间的人民币升值使该问题进一步恶化。



在去年12月召开的中央经济工作会议上，习近平坚定地将“供应面改革”确立为2016年经济政策的新关键词。这意味着中国政府将通过关闭工厂和裁员来解决产能过剩的问题，同时用更宽松的财政和货币政策来抵消影响。

若是在某个西方经济体，随着整体货币条件放松，此类计划会理所当然地伴随着实际汇率下滑。弹性的、由市场决定的汇率可以下跌也可以上涨。或许这在中国也正成为一种“必要之恶”。

本文作者是宏观经济学家，现为Fulcrum资产管理公司(Fulcrum Asset Management)董事长、Prisma Capital Partners联合创始人

译者/马柯斯