“If you want to see capitalism in action,” said Milton Friedman, “go to Hong Kong.” Beijing is taking him up on that. As it seeks to broaden ownership of its currency, China is using the special administrative region as a giant petri dish. It wants to observe how this profoundly consumerist culture absorbs the renminbi as a medium of exchange, as a store of value and as a unit of account. | 米爾頓•弗里德曼(Milton Friedman)曾經(jīng)說過:“如果你想要了解運行中的資本主義,去香港吧。”中國政府聽取了這一建議。為尋求擴大人民幣的持有范圍,中國正把香港特別行政區(qū)當(dāng)作一個巨大的試驗場。中國希望看一看,消費主義文化根深蒂固的香港,會如何把人民幣作為一種交換媒介、價值貯藏手段和記賬單位加以消化吸收。 |
Internationalisation had advanced slowly since November 2003, when the People’s Bank of China first agreed to provide clearing arrangements for renminbi business – exchange, remittance and ATM services – for holders of Hong Kong identity cards. Entering 2010, renminbi deposits in the city were just Rmb63bn, about 1.3 per cent of the total. There was little trade settled in renminbi and only a handful of offshore bonds for banks to invest in. | 2003年11月,中國央行(PBOC)首次同意向香港居民提供人民幣業(yè)務(wù)清算安排——包括兌換、匯款和ATM服務(wù)。自那時起,人民幣國際化進程緩慢前行。2010年年初,香港人民幣存款僅為630億元,占總儲蓄額的1.3%。以人民幣結(jié)算的貿(mào)易少之又少,只有為數(shù)不多的幾只離岸債券可供銀行投資。 |
The pace picked up last year. Deposits of Rmb280bn in November were almost 5 per cent of the total, while almost 70,000 mainland companies are now eligible to participate in cross-border renminbi settlement. “Dim sum” bonds number 43, for a combined value of Rmb59bn. And the petri sample is beginning to spread: the Hong Kong Monetary Authority delivered its first lot of renminbi banknotes to Taipei in October. | 去年,人民幣國際化步伐開始加快。11月,人民幣存款達到了2800億元,占總儲蓄額的5%,且近7萬家大陸企業(yè)目前有資格參與跨境人民幣結(jié)算。在香港發(fā)行、以人民幣計價的“點心債券”總數(shù)達到了43只,規(guī)模為人民幣590億元。同時,試驗樣本正不斷擴大:去年10月份,香港金管局(HKMA)向臺北提供了首批人民幣現(xiàn)鈔。 |
These are still very early days. A meaningful threshold – say 3 per cent of China’s M2 – would require at least Rmb2,000bn in circulation offshore. But the catalysts for broader ownership of the People’s Currency are still intact: the dollar’s Triffin dilemma (that short-term domestic and long-term international economic objectives can conflict when a currency is also a reserve currency) and the potential erosion of the value of China’s $2,648bn in foreign-exchange reserves. Beijing, by degrees, is loosening its grip. Conventional wisdom was that it would take decades, rather than years, for the renminbi to become a third pillar of the global monetary system. Not any more. | 目前還只是初期階段,要達到像樣的門檻——比如說占到中國M2貨幣供應(yīng)量的3%——至少需要有2萬億元人民幣在海外流通。但拓寬人民幣持有面的動力絲毫沒有改變:美元面臨的特里芬難題(Triffin dilemma)(當(dāng)一國貨幣成為儲備貨幣后,短期國內(nèi)經(jīng)濟目標(biāo)和長期國際經(jīng)濟目標(biāo)會相互沖突)以及中國2.648萬億美元外匯儲備的潛在縮水風(fēng)險。北京方面正逐步放松管制。以往的主流觀點認(rèn)為,人民幣成為全球貨幣體系第三大支柱將需要幾十年、而非幾年的時間。這種觀點已是昨日黃花。 |
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