西方银行争抢“一带一路”蛋糕

Their political leaders may be refusing to endorse China’s Belt and Road Initiative, but British and US banks are still rushing to seize opportunities thrown up by Beijing’s vast investment in the “new silk road” trade corridors spanning 65 countries.

西方政治领导人或许仍拒绝支持中国的“一带一路”倡议(BRI)，但英美银行急于抓住北京方面大举投资覆盖65个国家的“新丝绸之路”贸易走廊所带来的机遇。

The hundreds of billions of dollars China has committed to trade and infrastructure projects across much of central and south-east Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa has whetted the appetite of big western banks with operations in those areas, such as Citigroup, HSBC and Standard Chartered.

中国承诺在中亚和东南亚、中东、欧洲和非洲大片地区的贸易和基建项目上投入的数千亿美元，激起了花旗集团(Citigroup)、汇丰(HSBC)、渣打(Standard Chartered)等在这些地区有业务的大型西方银行的兴趣。

“It’s huge — the private sector capital that comes in afterwards will be really impactful, assuming it all happens,” says Bill Winters, chief executive of Standard Chartered. “Our job is to try and pull the different pieces together, because there will be some local financing that is required as well.”

“（机会）巨大——如果一切按计划实现的话，随之而来的私人部门资本将非常有影响力，”渣打行政总裁温拓思(Bill Winters)说，“我们的工作就是尝试穿针引线，把不同的碎片凑成一块拼图，因为还必须有一些当地的融资。”

The big banks have held conferences on BRI, appointed senior bankers to champion their role in the initiative and set up committees to co-ordinate their approaches across different business activities. They say these efforts are bearing fruit, listing dozens of financing deals they have won that are related in some way to the project.

这些大型银行举行了关于“一带一路”的会议，任命资深银行家为他们在这项倡议中争取有利角色，还设立了委员会来协调跨越不同业务活动的战略。他们表示这些努力正在取得成果，并列出了已经赢得的与“一带一路”多少相关的数十项融资交易。

Gerry Keefe, head of corporate banking in Asia-Pacific at Citigroup, says: “Our multinational clients — both from the US and in Asia — see the Belt and Road Initiative as a generational opportunity to expand the scale and reach of their businesses.”

花旗亚太区企业银行业务主管杰瑞?基夫(Gerry Keefe)表示：“我行的跨国客户——无论是来自美国还是在亚洲——都把‘一带一路’倡议视为一代人难遇的良机，能够扩大业务规模和触角范围。”

Despite their public enthusiasm, however, nagging doubts exist among western bankers about whether BRI will provide the instant bonanza that some may have initially hoped.

然而，尽管西方银行家们在公开场合热情高涨，但对于“一带一路”能否像某些人最初希望的那样立即带来效益，他们仍心存疑虑。

Their position is undermined by the ambivalence of their own governments towards the initiative. Theresa May refused to give written support to the project during the UK prime minister’s trip to China last month, while the US has viewed it with suspicion, particularly since president Donald Trump’s designation of China as a “strategic competitor”.

他们的地位被本国政府对这一倡议的矛盾态度削弱。英国首相特里萨?梅(Theresa May)上月访华期间拒绝签署支持“一带一路”倡议的谅解备忘录，美国则对该倡议持怀疑态度，尤其是因为唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)总统将中国列为“战略竞争对手”。

The vagueness of the project invites scepticism. “It is pretty broad: based on what Beijing has put out it covers half the world,” says another western banker. “It is just part of China’s outbound policy. I don’t know any BRI bankers. I don’t even know what they are.”

“一带一路”倡议的模糊性使其招致怀疑。“它相当宽泛：基于中国政府所发布的内容，它覆盖了半个地球，”另一位西方银行家表示，“它只是中国走出去政策的一部分。我不认识任何‘一带一路’银行家。我甚至不知道他们是什么。”

Western banking executives also say they are leaving the big state-sponsored infrastructure projects to local banks and development finance institutions. Instead they are focused on picking up ancillary business, such as providing foreign exchange, trade finance, interest rate swaps, or cash management to the multinational companies that work on projects.

西方银行业高管还表示，他们把国家支持的大型基建项目留给本地银行和发展金融机构，自己聚焦于争取配套业务，比如向从事“一带一路”项目的跨国公司提供外汇兑换、贸易融资、利率互换或现金管理等服务。

Citigroup has led large bond issues for Bank of China and Beijing Gas to finance their BRI plans. It has also won cash management and foreign exchange hedging contracts for several Fortune 500 companies operating on BRI projects.

花旗集团牵头安排了中国银行(Bank of China)和北京燃气(Beijing Gas)的大宗债券发行工作，为它们参与的“一带一路”项目融资。花旗还获得了多家参与“一带一路”项目的《财富》(Fortune) 500强公司的现金管理业务和外汇对冲合约。

StanChart is set to highlight its strong position for BRI business when it reports annual results on Tuesday as this is a key part of its plan to generate the revenue growth necessary to achieve its target of making a return on equity above 10 per cent.

渣打在本周二报告年度业绩时，将着重介绍该行在“一带一路”相关业务上的强大地位。这些业务是该行营收增长计划的关键部分，目标是实现10%以上的股本回报率。

The bank lists 20 financing deals it has won in the past four years that are linked to BRI. These include a $515m project financing for a power plant in Zambia that was guaranteed by China; a $200m loan for a Bangladesh electricity plant being built by a Chinese consortium; and a $42m export credit facility for a Sri Lanka gas terminal that was guaranteed by China.

渣打列出了过去4年期间赢得的与“一带一路”相关的20笔融资交易。这些交易包括为赞比亚一家发电厂提供的5.15亿美元项目融资（中国提供担保）；为一个中国财团承建的一家孟加拉国发电厂提供2亿美元项目贷款；为斯里兰卡一个天然气码头提供4200万美元出口信贷安排（中国提供担保）。

But Ben Hung, head of Greater China and North Asia at StanChart, says investors will need to be patient. “You have to look at it in a 10 to 20-year horizon — things won’t happen in one or two years,” he says.

渣打银行大中华及北亚地区主管洪丕正(Benjamin Hung)表示，投资者将需要耐心等待。他说，“你必须用10到20年的长远眼光来看待——不是一两年内就会出结果。”

“People excessively focus on whether there needs to be project financing, but in reality there is a lot of that and bit by bit, step by step, guarantees, FX, escrow accounts, etc — all those things — are very important to these Chinese players.”

“人们念念不忘是否需要项目融资，但现实是有很大需求；一点一点，一步一步，担保、外汇、托管账户等所有这一切对这些中国参与者都非常重要。”