Importing pessimism 进口的悲观情绪

Importing pessimism
进口的悲观情绪
Memories of 2008 are influencing Asia's policymakers
2008年的梦魇仍然影响亚洲的政策制定者
Dec 9th 2010 | HONG KONG| from PRINT EDITION

WAL-MART in China is not quite like Wal-Mart elsewhere. Its stores sell live turtles and toads. It is happy for its staff to join a union. And in Kunming, a southern city in which Wal-Mart has six shops, the company, as well as several of its competitors, must now report and justify any price increases to the government 48 hours in advance.
       沃尔玛在中国和在别处稍有不同。比如说，中国的沃尔玛里有生鳖和蟾蜍，公司的员工很乐意加入工会等等。南方城市昆明有六家沃尔玛分店，在那里，沃尔玛和其他几家同行如果要升价，必须要提前48小时向政府提交报告，证明升价的合理性。


This policing of prices is part of China's unorthodox fight against inflation, which is running at more than 4% a year. Rising prices are also discomfiting Asia's other developing economies (see chart). Policymakers in the region still fret about a repeat of the autumn of 2008, when the financial crisis struck. But a greater threat is a reprise of the spring and summer of that year, when commodity prices soared.
       对价格的监管是中国抗击通胀的其中一种非常手段，目前中国的通胀水平已经超过每年4%。价格的上升同时也冲击着亚洲其他发展中的经济体（见图表），该地区的政策制定者们非常担心08年秋的金融危机会再次出现，但更大的威胁在于商品价格的暴涨，正如那年春夏的情况。

In India (where Wal-Mart is confined to a joint venture in wholesaling), Pakistan, Bangladesh and Vietnam, the battle against inflation has been raging all year. In Indonesia, ground is being quickly ceded, as consumer prices rose by 6.3% in the year to November. Elsewhere, inflation is still modest by the standards of emerging economies. But pressure is building. Since June farm prices have risen as fast as they did in 2007 and 2008, although they have not yet risen as far. And HSBC's Asia Business Index, which draws on surveys of purchasing managers in the region, shows price pressures in Asia (excluding Japan) at their highest for at least a decade.
        在印度（沃尔玛在那里只有一家合资的批发商）、巴基斯坦、孟加拉国和越南，通胀之战全年无休。在印度尼西亚，截至11月的一年中消费价格上升了6.3%，大量土地被迅速割让。在其他国家，以新兴经济体的标准看，通胀仍算适度，但压力不断上升。自6月以来农产品价格上升的速度与07和08年相当，尽管上升幅度不及当时。汇丰亚洲商业指数（HSBC's Asia Business Index）在该地区的采购经理中开展调查，结果显示目前亚洲（除日本）的价格压力是至少近十年来最大的。

The source of this inflation is much disputed. Some blame bad weather, such as the October floods in China's Hainan province, which damaged crops and helped raise food prices. Others blame deluges of a more metaphorical kind: floods of capital from abroad or floods of lending at home. Indonesia's central bank, for example, has stopped selling three-month notes, which yield-hungry foreigners were eagerly snapping up. It is also thinking about reintroducing a cap on rupiah accounts held by foreigners, the latest in a series of dykes, bunds and culverts designed to control flows of capital. Even as inflation has crept up, the central bank has refrained from raising interest rates (which have not changed for 16 months) for fear of attracting more inflows. In this way the fear of foreign capital may be a bigger economic danger than the foreign capital itself.
       至于这一轮通胀的源头在哪里，大家众说纷纭。有人责怪天公不作美，10月中国海南省的洪水破坏了农作物，导致食品价格上升。有人则用"大洪水"暗指一些其他的因素：国外资金和国内借贷的大量涌现。举个例子，印度尼西亚央行已经停止销售被渴望高收益的外国人抢购的三月期央票，同时考虑重新设置门槛，对外国人持印尼盾帐户进行限制，以控制资金的流动。尽管通胀已经发生，央行还是拒绝提高已经16个月不变的利率，以防更多资金流入。这样一来，对国外资金的恐惧也许比资金本身更危险。

This reluctance to tighten monetary policy faster has allowed private credit to grow by more than 20% a year in Bangladesh, Vietnam and India. "With benefit of hindsight it would now appear that liquidity support may…at times have been overly generous," the central bank of Bangladesh admitted in its half-yearly statement. In China, banks were supposed to expand their loan books by no more than 18% (7.5 trillion yuan, or $1.1 trillion) this year, but they look likely to breach that limit. On December 3rd the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party said it would pursue a "prudent" monetary policy in 2011, having followed "a moderately loose" policy this year. That has been interpreted to mean credit growth of perhaps only 14% in 2011.
       孟加拉国、越南和印度一直不愿加快收紧货币政策，使得私人信贷一年增长20%以上。孟加拉国央行在它的年中报告中承认，"事后看来，有时候我们太过慷慨地提供流动性支持"。在中国，银行今年增加的贷款不应该超过18%（7万5千亿人民币，折合1万1千亿美元），但它们似乎已经突破了那个界限。12月3日中央政治局表示，2011年将采取"稳健的"货币政策，取代今年"适度宽松的"政策。这就意味着，2011年信贷增长也许只能达到14%。

Asia's policymakers remain "paranoid about growth scares from the West," argues Sean Darby of Nomura. They do not want to repeat the mistake of 2008, when they were caught tightening even as the financial crisis struck. But Asia's economies have returned to normal rather faster than its monetary policies. In emerging Asia as a whole, industrial production has caught up with its historical trend, almost as if the Great Recession never happened. And even as America and Europe are exporting pessimism to Asia's policymakers, they are importing goods from its factories. America's economy, for example, grew by only 1.7% at an annual pace in the second quarter, but its imports grew by 33.5%. Goldman Sachs describes this as the "biggest trade drag in US history".
       野村综合研究所的Sean Darby说，亚洲的政策制定者仍然在"过分猜疑西方的亚洲威胁论"。他们不希望重蹈08年的覆辙，当时即使金融危机来袭，他们仍然采取紧缩政策。但是亚洲各经济体恢复正常速度比它们的货币政策要快。在整个崛起中的亚洲，工业生产已经恢复到历史潮流中，就好像大萧条从来没有发生过那样。尽管美国和欧洲正在向亚洲的决策制定者灌输悲观情绪，他们的确在从亚洲的工厂进口货物。以美国经济为例，第二季度的同比增长率只有1.4%，但进口却上升了33.5%。高盛将这种现象称为"美国史上最大的贸易累赘"。

Not only have America's imports bounced back faster than its output, its imports from Asia have recovered faster than its purchases from less fortunate parts of the world, points out Frederic Neumann of HSBC. This may be a new phenomenon, as cash-strapped shoppers turn to more affordable Asian products. Or it may be a cyclical one: Asia's component-makers often prosper in the early stages of the Western business cycle, as companies rebuild their inventories in anticipation of brighter sales to come.
       汇丰的Frederic Neumann指出，美国不仅进口比产出反弹得快，从亚洲的进口比其他地区也恢复得更快，那些地区似乎没有那么幸运。钱包收缩的消费者们转向了更实惠的亚洲商品，这可以说是一个新现象，也可以说是一个循环：亚洲的零配件制造商常在西方商业周期的前期繁荣起来，因为对前景的美好预期，公司会重建库存。

Now that inventories are better stocked, American firms may be less eager buyers. Goldman Sachs is expecting America's growth to remain steady, but its imports to slow. That will take some of the steam out of Asia's exports, which may already be levelling off. Taiwan's November shipments, for example, look impressive in comparison with a year earlier (up by more than a fifth), but they have shrunk a little since the spring. Asia's exports may be peaking, then, even as inflation is gathering strength. With luck, the former problem will help solve the latter.
       但是现在库存已经足够多了，美国的公司可能会减少购买。高盛预期美国经济的增长会保持平稳，但是进口将会放缓。这将会影响正在取得平衡的亚洲出口。举个例子，11月台湾的运输量和去年同期相比有惊人的增长（超过20%），但是从春天开始有所下降。之后，就算通胀压力仍在积聚，亚洲的出口也可能会见顶。如果运气好的话，出口减缓也许可以帮助缓解通胀。