出国考试双语阅读：人民币升值给香港经济带来什么影响？

出国考试双语阅读：

you might expect hong kong to be delighted with its central role in the internationalisation of the renminbi. the metrics have indeed been impressive: since mid-2010 rmb deposits have grown five-fold, to about 8 per cent of hong kong’s deposit base; monthly rmb trade settlements in the city have grown 13-fold over the same period and account for almost 90 per cent of china’s cross-border rmb trade settlements; the so-called dim-sum bond market has gone from zero to a us$15bn market in less than a year.

你可能认为香港会对其在人民币国际化进程中所扮演的核心角色感到高兴。相关数量指标的确令人印象深刻：自2010年年中以来，香港人民币存款额增长了4倍，已占到当地存款基础的约8%；同期，香港人民币贸易月结算额增长了12倍，占到中国跨境人民币贸易结算额的近90%；所谓的“点心债券”市场的规模，在不到一年的时间里从零增长到了150亿美元。

yet it is also increasingly apparent that the rapid development of an offshore rmb market also poses an insidious threat to the stability of hong kong’s financial economy and its cherished peg to the us dollar.

但下述事实同样越来越明显：离岸人民币市场的迅速发展，也对香港金融经济的稳定和其珍视的盯住美元的联系汇率制构成了潜在威胁。

the first sign that all may be not well can be detected in the sharp escalation in the effective mortgage rate in hong kong over the past 2 months. hong kong banks are drastically widening their lending spreads (by as much as 130bp) even as base rates in us (and therefore hong kong) remain close to zero.

情况可能不妙的首个迹象，可从过去两月香港实际按揭利率的急速攀升中察觉到。尽管美国的基准利率仍维持在近零水平（因而香港也是如此），香港银行却大幅提高了它们的贷款息差（提高幅度多达130个基点）。

deposit growth excluding rmb has been tepid in hong kong over the past 6 months, while loan growth has accelerated. rapid growth in rmb deposits is effectively sucking hong kong dollar liquidity out of the system, and forcing hong kong banks to offer much higher hong kong dollar time deposit rates than would be warranted by the current us interest rate context.

过去6个月里，香港非人民币存款的增长一直不冷不热，而贷款增长却在加速。人民币存款的迅速增长实际上正在将港元流动性吸出银行系统，迫使香港银行为港元定期存款开出较高的利率——远高于当前美国利率背景所能确保的水平。

as the cost of funding for hong kong dollar deposits rises while us rates remain static, banks need to raise lending spreads. meanwhile, for ‘strategic’ reasons, hong kong banks continue to fight for market share on rmb deposits by offering uneconomical time deposit rates. there is currently no scaleable channel through which hong kong banks can earn a satisfactory margin on rmb time deposits. the banking system’s balance sheet is therefore increasingly funded by deposits in a non-convertible currency that has a negligible or negative yield.

由于吸收港元存款的成本上升、而美国利率仍一动不动，银行不得不提高贷款息差。与此同时，出于“战略”原因，香港银行仍在通过提供不经济的定期存款利率，来争夺人民币存款的市场份额。目前尚不存在什么可扩展的渠道，来供香港银行从人民币定期存款上赚取令其满意的利润。因此，香港银行系统资产负债表上堆积的不可兑换货币存款越来越多，而从这种货币上获得的收益可忽略不计、甚至为负。

if near-zero us rates persist and corporate and retail customers’ assumption that rmb appreciation is a one-way bet remains unchanged, hong kong banks may continue as the unprofitable counterparty to the rmb/us dollar carry trade. depending on the pace of the offshore rmb development and for how long us interest rates stay abnormally low, such a structural disruption to the banking system will become unsustainable at some point if hong kong is to remain firmly anchored in its currency peg to the us dollar.

如果美国继续维持近零利率，而且企业与零售客户有关押注人民币升值是稳赚不赔买卖的假设仍不改变，那么香港银行可能将继续扮演人民币/美元套利交易中赚不到钱的那一方。如果香港继续坚守盯住美元的联系汇率制，那么上述对香港银行系统的结构性破坏到某个时点将变得不可持续。至于具体是到什么时点，则要看离岸人民币发展的速度、以及美国利率会在多长时间内维持在反常低位。

what is the way out of this conundrum? for hong kong proactively to cap its growth in the offshore rmb market is politically unthinkable and over the longer-term strategically unsound, given that it is hardly controversial to predict that hong kong’s currency will eventually either be pegged to, or be replaced by, the rmb once the latter becomes freely convertible.

如何破解这一难题？既然大家几乎一致预期，一旦人民币变得可自由兑换，港元最终将要么与人民币挂钩、要么被人民币取代，那么对香港来说，主动限制自身在离岸人民币市场上的增长，在政治上则是不可想象的，长远而言则是犯下了战略性错误。

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