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It has not been a great week for China bulls.
对于看好中国经济的人而言，这一周过的并不开心。
First, data out at the end of last week pointed to a slowing mainland economy as the pace of growth in industrial production and investment fell in the second quarter. Then, in its annual review of the Chinese economy, the International Monetary Fund warned darkly of the risk of defaults on $6tn of shadow banking products. That gave more ammunition to those who warn that no country has increased its debt to GDP at the rate that China has without having a crisis.
首先，上周五公布的数据显示中国内地经济放缓，7月份工业生产增速和1-7月份投资增速双双下滑。接着，在对中国经济的年度评估中，国际货币基金组织(IMF)对6万亿美元影子银行产品的违约风险提出严重警告。这给一些人提供了更多弹药，他们警告称，没有哪个国家能以中国的速度提高债务与国内生产总值(GDP)之比而不发生危机。
It is possible, though, that the gloom is overdone. “Our analysis of 765 banks in China indicates that recapitalisation and bailouts have started and made unexpected (and under-appreciated) progress,” notes Jason Bedford, an analyst at UBS in Hong Kong in a detailed analysis in mid-August. “Write-offs and bad asset disposal have risen threefold since 2013.”
然而，这种悲观情绪或许过头了。“我们对中国765家银行的分析显示，资本重组以及纾困已经启动并且取得了出乎意料（且被低估）的进展，”瑞银(UBS)驻香港分析师贾森•贝德福德(Jason Bedford)在8月中旬一份详细分析报告中指出，“自2013年以来，资产减记和不良资产处置增加了2倍。”
Mr Bedford’s study is one of several indicators that suggest things are not as dire as conventional wisdom — and the many hedge funds with short positions on the banks as a proxy for the Chinese economy — suggest.
贝德福德的研究以及其他迹象表明，情况并不像普遍看法——以及通过做空银行来做空中国经济的许多对冲基金——所认为的那样严重。
One of the banks that Mr Bedford mentions as having made aggressive write-offs of the sort of shadowy products the IMF warns about is Bank of Dalian. It reduced its exposure to what the lender itself refers to as high-risk credit assets and other credit assets by 86 per cent — and took a 95 per cent drop in profits before tax.
贝德福德提到一些银行对IMF提出警告的影子银行产品进行了大规模减记，其中一家银行是大连银行(Bank of Dalian)。该银行将其自称的高风险信贷资产和其他信贷资产的敞口减少了86%，税前利润缩水95%。
Dalian has the distinction of being based in Liaoning province, in China’s depressed north-east — the only province that actually shrank in recent quarters. In other words, the local economy is so bad that the bank’s executives could not hope to grow out of their problem assets over time in the way counterparts in more healthy parts of the country predict they will.
大连银行的不同之处在于，它位于经济境况不佳的中国东北部的辽宁省，而辽宁是最近几个季度经济实际上出现收缩的唯一省份。换句话说，当地经济非常糟糕，银行高管不可能指望慢慢靠业务增长摆脱不良资产，像处于经济较健康地区的银行预测能够做到的那样。
City commercial banks such as Dalian are at the bottom of the financial food chain. Their larger rivals lend to big state-owned enterprises and are more diversified both by sector and geography. Borrowers from the city commercial banks, by contrast, tend to be small and medium enterprises that often lack valuable collateral and reliable numbers on cash flow.
大连银行等城市商业银行处于金融食物链的最底端。规模较大的竞争对手会贷款给国有企业，而且它们在贷款行业和地区分布方面较为多样化。相比之下，城市商业银行的贷款对象往往是中小企业，后者常常缺乏有价值的抵押物和可靠的现金流数据。
Last year, Dalian sold Rmb15bn of non-performing loans to Orient AMC, one of the four big asset management companies authorised by the central government to buy such problem obligations.
去年，大连银行接受东方资产管理公司(Orient AMC)注资150亿元人民币，其中62亿元人民币用于收购其不良贷款。东方资产是中国中央政府批准成立的收购不良贷款的四大资产管理公司之一，最初成立的目的是购买中国银行(Bank of China)的不良贷款。
Orient, originally established to buy Bank of China’s NPLs, then went on to take a 51 per cent stake in the newly cleaned up bank. With its deep pockets, Orient could afford to install more experienced executives in Dalian, and, eventually, attract better customers. “With a strong parent, they can lift their brand,” one person involved with the bank says.
东方资产后来获得清理干净的大连银行的50.29%股权。东方资产的雄厚财力令其有能力向大连银行派驻更有经验的高管并最终吸引更好的客户。一位熟悉大连银行的人士表示：“有了这家强大的母公司，他们就能提升他们的品牌。”
In many cases, management changes can make a big difference to a bank’s results. The founder of one lender in Shenzhen notes that he was able to improve the quality of the bank’s loan book by changing the incentive structure for employees. When the company began compensating loan officers based on interest-paying loans rather than on the rate of growth of the loan book, results improved dramatically. “We have learnt a lot,” he says.
在很多情况下，管理层变动可能会对银行业绩产生巨大影响。深圳一家银行的创始人指出，通过改变员工激励结构，他得以改善了该银行的贷款质量。当该银行开始根据付息贷款而非贷款增速为信贷员发放薪酬时，该银行的业绩获得巨大改善。他表示：“我们学到了很多。”
To be fair, his bottom line was also helped because much of the collateral for the loan book was in the form of local real estate and Shenzhen has had the hottest property market on the mainland for the past two years.
公平的来讲，该银行的利润也得到改善，因为很多贷款的抵押物是当地房地产，而过去两年深圳房地产市场是中国内地最火热的。
Still there are other hopeful indications for China’s economy. For example producer prices are expected to stop falling by the end of the year after four years of declines, says Haibin Zhu, chief China economist at JPMorgan Chase. As a result the real burden of debt will become lighter, providing relief to China’s many indebted corporates — and their bankers.
对于中国经济而言，还有其他一些颇有希望的迹象。例如，摩根大通(JPMorgan)中国首席经济学家朱海斌表示，预计生产者价格将在连续4年下跌后在今年年内止住跌势。因此，实际的债务负担将减轻，这将让很多负债企业以及负责它们贷款的信贷员松一口气。
A benign outcome for China’s slowing economy of course is still not a given. After all, “bad debt accumulation is still rising,” Mr Bedford notes. “The growth of the problem could outpace the solution.”
当然，对于中国日益放缓的经济而言，良好的结果不是必然的。毕竟，“坏账累积仍在增加，”贝德福德指出，“问题的解决可能赶不上问题的增加。”
In many cases, related party lending and under the table kickbacks remain an issue; in other cases, it is hard to know whether political interference or lack of simple risk management is responsible for the mess. But at least the worst possible outcome is no longer a given.
在很多情况下，关联方贷款以及暗中回扣仍是一个问题；在另外一些情况下，很难确定是政治干预还是缺乏简单的风险管理导致了问题。但至少，最糟糕的可能结果不再是必然的了。
