japan inflation rate 为什么说中国不会发生债务危机？(3)

The fundamental problem with this ratio is that it only provides a narrow snapshot of an economy’s debt picture. Debt is a stock concept, while GDP is a flow. The ratio tells you more about how much of an economy’s accumulated savings have been allocated via the debt channel. It does not tell us anything about a country’s net asset position. Nor does it provide any information on debt-servicing costs or the mix of local versus foreign currency-denominated debt. As such, the debt-to-GDP ratio gives us almost no information on a nation’s ability to sustain its debt.

这一比率的根本问题在于，它只让我们窥见了一个经济体债务图景的局部。债务是一个存量概念，而GDP是一个流量。其比率更多地是告诉你一个经济体中累积的储蓄有多少是通过债务渠道来配置的。它丝毫不说明一个国家的净资产状况，也没有提供关于偿债成本或本外币债务构成的任何信息。因此，债务与GDP比率几乎提供不了关于一个国家偿债能力的任何信息。

In recent years, the rapid escalation of China’s credit-to-GDP ratio has been watched keenly by the investment community. Many predict that a debt crisis in the country would be the next big event that would bring down the world economy and global financial markets. I disagree. China’s domestic saving rate is 48 per cent, which amounts to almost $6tn of new savings each year. This vast pool of savings primarily relies on state-owned banks for allocation. It is therefore inevitable that the country has a high credit-to-GDP ratio.

近年来，中国的债务与GDP比率的快速上升一直备受投资界关注。许多人预测中国的债务危机将是下一个会拖垮世界经济和全球金融市场的重大事件。我不同意这一观点。中国的国内储蓄率达到48%，相当于每年有近6万亿美元新增储蓄。这个庞大的储蓄池主要依靠国有银行进行配置。这不可避免地导致了中国的信贷与GDP的高比值。

Furthermore, so-called credit risk in China is, in fact, sovereign risk. The Chinese government often relies on bank credit to finance government stimulus programmes. In 2009, Beijing launched a fiscal package worth more than $600bn to combat the effects of the global recession that followed the financial crisis. Subsequently, Chinese bank credit growth climbed steeply, lifting the credit-to-GDP ratio to new highs. In essence, the Chinese government was using credit expansion to finance fiscal stimulus. This was a credit-based equivalent of the Troubled Asset Relief Program in the US. There, fiscal stimulus programmes are financed by increasing public sector debt. In China, they are often funded by depositors.