China privatization: New York Times, IHT
2013-08-14 14:38阅读：
China's Coming Wave of Privatization,
By JOE ZHANG, New York Times/IHT, August 13, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/opinion/chinas-coming-wave-of-privatization.html?pagewanted=all
中国的地方政府确实债务缠身，但是它们从来就没有真正独立的财政，它们只是中央政府的分支机构。所以中国目前暂时还不会出现债务危机。
中国税收占GDP的比重在过去20年几乎翻番。高税收已经窒息民企。而且，印钞票（信贷膨胀）的游戏也已经无法维持了。
剩下就是私有化了：政府砸锅卖铁。还债!
太好了！过去20年，国企的膨胀太过分了：它们挤占了民企的生存空间，浪费了宝贵资源，破坏了公平竞争，恶化了官商勾结，加重了产能过剩。
HONG KONG — In May, a deputy mayor of a midsize city in central
China flew down to see me in Shenzhen, where I sit on a government
advisory panel for financing small and medium-sized businesses. He
wanted a favor. “Can you help arrange financing for our sports
center?” he asked. It's going to be one of the largest in central
China.”
It was another tale of woe about a half-finished project in
desperate need of more money. I'd heard this song before.
After Lehman Brothers fell in 2008, the Chinese government pan
icked and unleashed an ambitious stimulus program by expanding
public works projects to build roads, railroads and municipal
buildings. China avoided a recession but is now left with a lot of
half-finished or barely used infrastructure. In the process, the
coffers of many local governments were emptied.
The sports center is symptomatic of a nationwide problem. Partly
financed by the sale of adjacent land sites, the project was
dubious to begin with: It is a small city for a big sports center,
and there are similar stadiums in nearby cities. After three years
of delays, it had serious budget overruns and remained unfinished.
In early 2012 a trust company sold debt for the center that was
guaranteed by the local government’s stakes in two local power
plants.
The city's officials tried everything to get banks to chip in, to
no avail, as the cash-flow projections for the facility were a
stretch of the imagination. What about selling more land? That was
a tough proposition, too, as the city was already saddled with too
many vacancies and real estate developers were no longer eager to
invest. What’s more, city officials had exceeded their land-sale
quotas, which are set by Beijing to prevent too much farmland from
being turned into real estate.
“We may have to do the inevitable and sell the family silver, such
as controlling shares in the local bank, hotels, water utilities
and industrial companies,” the deputy mayor said during his visit
to my office. The good news is that Beijing generally does not
stand in the way when local governments want to sell such
assets.
In the past year, with a slowing Chinese economy coming under
increased scrutiny, so-called local government financing vehicles —
schemes like the one to finance the sports center — have become a
source of concern, as banks and analysts worry about a wave of bad
debts. Some estimates put local government debts at more than 12
trillion yuan ($2 trillion) as of the end of 2012. That’s
equivalent to about 25 percent of China’s 2012 G.D.P. Some
economists fear the day of reckoning will come in 2014, when most
debts will come due. That will spark a crisis of confidence, they
say, and a collapse of the economy.
I dismiss such alarmist predictions.
First, there is no such thing as local government debt. China does
not have a federal system; all tiers of local government are
branches of the central government. At the end of the day, the
central government stands behind all levels of government. It
determines the tax-revenue sharing formula with each local
government, makes all political appointments, and says if a local
government is allowed to sell bonds or not. In many cases, the
central government even sells bonds “on behalf of local
governments.” So, there will never be a Chinese equivalent of
Detroit, a metropolis that goes bankrupt while the rest of the
country looks on.
Second, even as the economy has been liberalized over the past 35
years, the government has substantially increased its slice of the
G.D.P. pie, leading to more income and a healthier balance sheet.
The ratio of total fiscal revenue to G.D.P. reached 22.6 percent in
2012 on the back of new taxes, higher tax rates and better
collection methods.
While much fiscal revenue has been squandered, at least some has
been reinvested each year to grow government assets. Today, the
government owns controlling stakes in a huge number of banks,
telecom operators, ports, roads, railroads, real estate holdings
and industrial companies. Not to mention its over $3 trillion in
foreign government bonds.
My friends from the central Chinese city indeed have a financial
headache. But it is neither the end of the world nor even alarming:
Bad debts can and will be covered by the central government.
Skeptics who look at the national economic picture, however, may
find good reason to worry. But the problems on the macro level
will, in fact, set in motion much-needed reforms — and the net
result will be a stronger economy.
Since 1978, when the policy of liberalization began, the state
sector has grown so large that it is stifling the private sector
and, even more important, holding back the economy.
With ready access to subsidized bank credit, the state sector has
overexpanded and worsened the problem of industrial overcapacity.
It has wreaked havoc in many industries with its disregard for
profitability. It consumes more than half of bank credit, forcing
small and medium-sized businesses to seek high-cost finance outside
the state banking system. Finally, it competes with the private
sector on unfair terms, causing resentment and making corruption
more endemic.
Thus, to avoid long-term stagnation, China will soon have to embark
on a second wave of privatization, as the government is running out
of options to fund further growth. Its fiscal deficits have risen
quickly, banks are overextended and land sales have become
untenable. Moreover, there are growing calls for the government to
replenish the inadequate social security fund to meet the needs of
an aging population.
This inevitable wave of privatization will bring with it the added
benefit of unleashing a corresponding wave of restructuring in what
has become a grossly inefficient and bloated economy. Luckily, the
new leadership seems to recognize that this is necessary. A
consensus appears emerging in the policy making circles that, as
fiscal stimulus runs out of steam, structural reforms can provide
huge potential for the next leg of development.
The sports center in central China should be completed, but it
should be taken over by a private company. My recommendation to the
deputy mayor was to auction it off, and I suspect he may soon heed
my advice.
Joe Zhang is chairman of a microcredit company in Guangzhou, China,
and the author of “Inside China’s Shadow Banking: The Next Subprime
Crisis?”
