经济反弹提升中国银行业业绩

A rebound in economic growth has allowed Chinese banks to outrun the approaching shadow of bad loans and given them more time to strengthen their balance sheets.

在经济增长反弹的影响下，中国各银行正走出不良贷款的阴影，并获得了加强资产负债表的更多时间。

When China’s banks announce their 2017 results this week, they are expected to report another year of large profits and negligible non-performing loans. State media estimates that profits for the country’s five biggest banks rose 12 per cent last year and that their bad-loan ratio was steady at 0.99 per cent.

本周，中国的银行将陆续公布2017年财报。根据预计，这将再次成为利润可观、而不良贷款可忽略不计的一年。中国官方媒体估计，该国五大银行的利润去年上升12%，不良贷款比例则保持在0.99%。

China Construction Bank reported its results yesterday; the first of the country’s “big four” banks to report its results. Its net profit rose 14 per cent to Rmb193.2bn ($31.1bn) in 2017, from Rmb169.3bn a year earlier. Analysts had expected Rmb192.7bn.

在中国四大银行中，中国建设银行昨天率先公布财报。其净利润从2011年的1693亿元人民币上升至2017年的1932亿元（311亿美元），增幅14%。分析师曾预计建行2017年利润为人民币1927亿元。

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China will follow over the next three days.

中国工商银行、中国农业银行和中国银行将在未来三天陆续公布财报。

The expected healthy figures contrast with pervasive fears since China’s stimulus spending spree in 2009 that the banks would soon face a mountain of debt.

自中国2009年推出巨额刺激计划以来，人们普遍担忧银行将很快面临巨额债务。这与预期的健康财务数据形成了鲜明对比。

Those concerns finally lifted towards the end of 2017, when China’s growth picked up after a two-year slowdown, fuelling a 30 per cent rally in the share prices of Chinese banks in Hong Kong. Li Lihui, president of Bank of China, the country’s third-biggest lender by assets, told the Financial Times this month that his bank had been especially strict last year in lending to high-risk borrowers, which the regulators have classified as including property developers and local government financing vehicles.

这些担忧终于在接近2017年底的时候烟消云散——中国经济增长在连续两年放缓后出现反弹，推动中国各银行在香港上市的股票价格上升30%。中国银行（中国资产规模第三大的银行）行长李礼辉本月对英国《金融时报》表示，中行去年特别收紧了对高风险借款者的贷款。监管机构将房地产开发商和地方政府融资工具划为高风险借款者。

An important part of the improved outlook for the banks has been the regulators’ willingness to allow them to roll over many of the loans to local governments that had come due in recent years and could not be immediately paid off.

中国各银行前景改善的一个重要原因是，监管机构愿意允许它们展延很多最近几年到期、且无法马上偿还的地方政府贷款。

Some of these loans have been restructured with new collateral transferred to banks, while others have been refinanced through bond issues.

其中一些贷款通过向银行提供新的抵押品进行了重组，还有一些通过发债进行了再融资。

The absolute volume of non-performing loans is likely to have increased about 15 per cent last year.

不良贷款绝对数额去年可能增长约15%。

But with banks’ overall loan books also increasing by 15 per cent, their bad debt ratios will have remained constant, said Jim Antos, a banking analyst with Mizuho Securities in Hong Kong.

但瑞穗证券(Mizuho Securities)驻香港银行业分析师吉姆??安托斯(Jim Antos)表示，由于贷款总额也增长了15%，因此中国各银行的坏账比率将保持不变。