我国利率市场化关山重重（中英对照）

我国利率市场化关山重重

China’s Interest Rate Liberalization: Bumpy Road Ahead

经国务院批准，中国人民银行决定，自7月20日起放开金融机构贷款利率管制，取消金融机构贷款利率7折的下限，但保留个人房贷利率为基准利率7折的下限。

The People’s Bank of China, with the approval of the State Council, has made a decision, which takes effect from July 20, 2013, to remove controls on lending rates applied to financial institutions by scrapping the floor on lending rates previously set at 70 percent of the benchmark rate. However, the floor on housing mortgage rates remains unchanged at 70 percent of the benchmark level.

　　取消贷款利率下限有两方面增益：其一，这是利率市场化进程中的必要一步。银行只有通过利率市场化后形成的竞争性环境，才可能真正发育为实质性的市场主体，并在竞争中优化资产负债表，将钱放到该去的地方，履行本来职能。其二，意味着除住房市场外的其他领域，企业融资成本降低的机会大大增加，相当于拓宽了实体经济的融资渠道。

The benefits to be gained from lifting the floor on lending rates are twofold. First, the move is a step necessary for China’s interest rate liberalization which contributes to the creation of a competitive environment where banks will grow into real market players, thereby streamlining their balance sheets while ensuring that their money is directed to where it should be. Second, the move allows enterprises in all sectors to increase dramatically their chances of reducing financing costs except for those operating in the housing market sector, thus broadening financing channels for the real economy.

　　不过，取消贷款利率下限与利率市场化和实体经济获益的目标之间，仍然关山重重。一方面，实现利率市场化，最直接的方式是取消存款利率上限，这一步尚未迈出。在充分竞争的环境尚未形成的情况下，资金相对充裕、资金来源成本较低的大银行，不会因为新政策主动采取降低利润的竞争方式。而那些资金拆借成本高的中小银行，更不会轻易应用新政策。因此，实施基准以上贷款利率水平，仍将是银行愿意遵守的“行规”。

However, there are still literally enormous hurdles to the liberalization of interest rates and ultimately to the goal of gaining benefits for the real economy even with the removal of the floor on lending rates. Although a fast and direct way of liberalizing China’s interest rate regime is to lift the ceiling on deposit rates once and for all, such a step remains to be taken. In an environment where there is a lack of full competition, big banks will not, due to their sufficient available funds and relatively low costs of acquiring them, voluntarily engage in competition by reducing their profit margins following the introduction of new policy. Meanwhile, it is even less likely that the micro, small and medium-sized banks will apply the new policy given the higher costs of inter-bank borrowing. Therefore, there seems to be an accepted norm across China’s banking sector that will determine the banks’ willingness to set lending rates above the benchmark level.

　　另一方面，实体经济中能享受贷款利率下限优惠的，通常是实力雄厚的大企业。如果银行不能迅速成长为自主性较强的竞争主体，如果受到行政干扰或寻租的诱惑，那么取消贷款利率下限的政策红利，很可能被权势企业、利益关联企业独占，进一步加剧资金的错配。

From another perspective, it is evident that only those large and powerful enterprises in real economy will have access to the benefits derived from the removal of the floor on lending rates. Therefore, banks need to be quickly transformed into highly independent competitive entities, or otherwise they will continue to invite administrative interference and rent-seeking activities. Under such circumstances, the implementation of the new policy is most likely to bring tangible benefits only to those enterprises in positions of power and authority, or to those well-connected enterprises, further exacerbating the misallocation of capital.

　　很显然，仅仅取消贷款利率下限，很难产生巨大的增值利益，这仍是一种助跑式改革，是为完成利率市场化积累动能，而非关键一跃。只有取消存款利率上限等新政迅速跟进，改革红利才可能真正增长出来。

Obviously, massive profits can hardly accrue merely from the removal of the floor on lending rates. This is not so much about a crucial step towards the success of the reform as it is about building up a momentum towards it. Tangible benefits can be fully generated out of the reform, but only when the ceiling on deposit rates is lifted, coupled with other follow-up measures being taken in a timely manner.

　　而从金融服务实体经济、管理通胀预期这两个最重要职能的角度讲，即使完成了利率市场化，也不意味着实体经济——主要指中小微企业就能获得较充沛的资金帮助。因为，从市场的角度看，中小微企业的信用等级永远无法与大企业相比。市场化的银行，仍会倾向于将资金向大企业倾斜，而忽视中小微企业。

In terms of the fundamental nature of bank financing, whose two principal functions are to provide financial services to the real economy and anchor inflation expectations, the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, which represent part of the real economy, will find it hard to obtain reasonably sufficient financial assistance even with the liberalization of China’s interest rate regime. The reason behind is that, from a market perspective, the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises will always pale in comparison to the large ones over the status of their credit ratings. Market oriented banks are likely to shift their lending funds into the large enterprises and away from the micro, small and medium-sized ones. 

　　让银行成为真银行，让行长成为银行家，仅靠银行内部改革不足以完成，还须辅以更深入和果断的财政改革等外部力量。比如，如果财税政策和地方收费政策能真正实施对中小微企业的倾斜政策，那么这些对就业率和GDP贡献最大的企业的信用等级就会提高，银行的贷款热情将被激活，金融服务实体经济就不再是一个难以兑现的诺言。

Let Chinese banks be real banks and their chiefs be real bankers. This requires not only the banks’ internal reforms, but also deeper and tougher fiscal reforms and other initiatives needed as an external driving force. For example, if fiscal and tax policies, and local charging policies can be tilted in favor of the micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, which contribute most to GDP and employment, it can be surely presumed that credit ratings of these enterprises will end up being upgraded. As a consequence, banks, with their enthusiasm for lending being aroused, will deliver financial services to the real economy—a promise which is hard to keep now, and will be fulfilled in the future.

从这个角度讲，取消贷款利率下限如同一个窗口，映射着金融和财税体制改革的力度和配套性。前路依然曲折，改革仍需不间断推出。

Seen from this perspective, lifting the floor on lending rates is just a signal indicating the extent to which reforms of the financial, fiscal and tax systems can be undertaken, and the degree to which these reforms need to be matched with appropriate supporting measures. In any event, the road ahead is filled with twists and turns calling for more reforms to be announced in the future.

（中文来源： 徐立凡刊发在《京华时报》上的《完成利率市场化还待关键一跃》一文）