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Loans between companies is the fastest-growing category of shadow banking in China, but with next to no data on where such loans are going, their effect on the economy is a black box.
公司间贷款（委托贷款）是中国增长最快的一种影子银行业务，这种贷款的去向几乎无数据可查，所以对经济的影响一直是个谜团。
But two academic papers published over the last year on such lending - known as entrusted loans - offer a rare glimpse into how these loans work. The findings? Entrusted loans may have become the single most important factor keeping China's property developers afloat. More broadly, the risk of such lending might be less than the huge issuance figures suggest.
不过去年发表的两份学术报告让人们有机会一窥其庐山真面目。根据这些报告，委托贷款可能已经成为中国房地产市场最重要的生命线，而从更广泛的角度说，尽管委托贷款规模庞大，风险却似乎并没有数据预示的那样大。
Nonbank or shadow lending has ballooned in recent years as regulators have repeatedly tried to cut off certain sectors of the economy from formal financing channels. But each time Beijing has tried to crimp one source of credit, another avenue appears to take up the slack.
近年来，由于监管部门切断了某些经济领域的正规融资途径，非银行信贷或影子银行得到了迅速扩张的机会。政府每一次限制某方面的贷款，就会有另一条信贷途径填补空缺。
Now it's entrusted loans. Such forms of lending increased by a net 2.55 trillion yuan ($407.38 billion) last year, equivalent to 29% of all new yuan bank loans issued during the year. That's up from 1.28 trillion yuan in 2012, when they stood at only 16% of bank loans.
委托贷款亦不例外。去年，中国委托贷款规模净增人民币2.55万亿元（4,073.8亿美元），相当于全年新增人民币贷款的29%。2012年委托贷款增加1.28万亿元，占当年新增人民币贷款的比例仅为16%。
Based on a survey of nine major banks in Shanghai for a paper submitted in May, Wang Jiahui, an assistant researcher at the Shanghai headquarters of the People's Bank of China, found that in 2011 about 21% of all entrusted loans went to the property sector, up from 19% in 2010.
中国央行上海总部助理研究员王家辉在去年5月份发表的一份报告中指出，2011年，中国约21%的委托贷款流入房地产市场，高于2010年的19%。这份报告对上海九家大型银行做了调查。
And in a paper late last year based on a review of entrusted loans that were issued by listed Chinese companies between 2004 and 2013, two academics at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology found that about 20% of such loans over the nearly 10-year period went to the property sector.
而华中科技大学(Huazhong University of Science and Technology)两位学者去年晚些时候发表的一篇报告则显示，在将近十年的时间里，大约有20%的委托贷款进入房地产业。这份报告考察了中国上市公司2004年至2013年发放的委托贷款。
If those results are representative of all entrusted loans nationwide - and that's a big if - then companies lent about 766 billion yuan to developers in 2013, marginally more than banks and more than twice the amount of funding trust companies provided. Some of these loans carry high interest rates and there are signs some borrowers are having trouble repaying them.
假设调查结果可以代表全国委托贷款的整体形势，那么2013年中国公司向房地产开发商提供的贷款金额就达到人民币7,660亿元左右，比银行发放的房地产贷款略多，比信托公司发放的房地产贷款高逾一倍。其中一些贷款利率很高，某些开发商已经出现偿付困难。
Zhejiang Longsheng Group, a chemicals maker in eastern Zhejiang province, said in its 2013 earnings report that it extended the maturity on 199.5 million yuan worth of entrusted loans to three developers last year. The interest rates on those loans ranged from 23% to 25%. Longsheng officials declined to comment.
浙江化工生产商浙江龙盛集团股份有限公司(Zhejiang Longsheng Group，简称：浙江龙盛)在2013年的财报中称，该公司去年把提供给三家开发商的价值人民币1.995亿元的委托贷款延期。这些贷款的利率从23%至25%不等。浙江龙盛管理人员不予置评。
Once a money spinner, entrusted loans are no longer generating major returns for Longsheng like they used to. The company earned 21.9 million yuan from loans it made to other companies last year, down 77% from 2012.
委托贷款曾是一项非常赚钱的业务，但现在不像过去那样为浙江龙盛带来巨额回报了。该公司去年通过向其他公司提供贷款获利人民币2,190万元，较2012年减少77%。
For the most part, however, entrusted loans are lower risk than other types of shadow banking. They are mainly used by conglomerates to move cash between units, offering companies a way to manage resources in the course of everyday business. Such transactions usually carry very low interest rates. According to the two reports, about 80% of all entrusted loans are between these kinds of 'related parties.'
不过，总体来讲，委托贷款的风险比其他类型的影子银行业务要低。委托贷款主要被企业集团用来在各分公司之间转移现金，它为企业提供了一条在日常业务中管理资源的途径。这类交易的利率通常很低。据上述两份报告显示，全部委托贷款中约有80%是在此类“关联方”之间进行的。
During good times, there are plenty of reasons to shuffle cash from one unit to another. For a group of companies tied together by common shareholders, it makes sense to use collective cash holdings to cover funding needs, rather than to pay more to borrow money from a bank.
在市场形势好的时候，在子公司之间转移现金可以有很多原因。对于一群被共同的股东联系在一起的公司来说，用集体持有的现金满足融资需求，而不是支付更高的利率从银行贷款，这样做合情合理。
However, when these sorts of transactions pick up during bad times, it could be that some units, such as steelmakers or property developers, can't pay their bills-from interest on a bank loan to payments owed to suppliers or wages due to employees. So money is diverted - as entrusted loans - from units that have cash to those that don't. To put it another way, the healthy parts of a corporation end up subsidizing those that are struggling.
不过，在年景不好的时候这类交易会增多，可能是因为一些子公司（比如钢铁厂商或房地产开发商）无力偿债（从银行贷款利息到拖欠供应商的款项或拖欠员工的工资）。一些资金以委托贷款的形式被从现金充裕的子公司转移到现金不足的公司。换句话说，企业是在用状况良好的业务补贴那些陷入困境的业务。
Without official data - or at least more extensive data - it's impossible to have a precise picture of where money from entrusted loans is going, or even assess how big a risk such lending poses to the economy. But based on a partial snapshot, they may have become a lifeblood for struggling industries-the property sector in particular.
在缺乏官方数据（至少是更详尽数据）的情况下，对委托贷款资金流向哪里不可能有一个精确的描绘，甚至难以评估这类借贷给经济带来多大的风险。但根据部分信息，它们可能已经成为陷入困境的行业（尤其是房地产业）的生命线。
