NSP통신

[서울=NSP통신] 임창섭 기자 = 스위스의 금융 그룹 UBS는 올해 중국 경제의 성장률을 8.5%로 전망하고 있으며 올 1, 2월의 중국 경제지표들을 종합적으로 점검해 본 결과 국내 소비가 상대적으로 부진하지만 향후 대출 규제 완화와 함께 회복될 가능성이 높다고 평가하고 있는 것으로 나타났다.

그러나 부동산 시장 조정이 깊어질 가능성(Downside)과 지방정부의 투자가 예상 보다 많아질 가능성(Upside)이 내부 위험요인으로 지적됐다.

더불어 중국 은행권의 부실채권은 공식적으로 1%를 상회하는 수준이지만 지방정부에 대한 대출의 상당수가 부실화되었을 가능성을 고려하면 실질적으로 4~5%까지 늘어날 것으로 추정했다.

국제금융센터 이정훈 연구원은 최근 뉴욕사무소가 UBS의 중국 Economist인 Wang Tao와 면담, 중국 경제에 대한 전망과 부동산 경기 관련 의견을 청취한 결과 이같은 평가를 내리고 있다고 보고했다.

이 보고서에 따르면 UBS는 중국의 재정정책과 관련, 재정적자 축소(목표치: GDP대비 2.0→1.5%)를 위한 정부의 노력이 지속되겠지만 과도한 긴축정책을 펼치지는 않을 것으로 전망하고 있다.

고정자산 투자에 대해서는 공공주택 건설과 수자원 체계 개선, 서부 개발 등을 지속할 것으로 평가했다.
제에 충격을 주지 않기 위해 중국 정부가 올해안에 대대적인 구조조정을 하지는 않을 것으로 전망하고 중소기업에 대한 세제 혜택 등의 지원을 펼칠 것으로 전망했다.

뉴욕사무소는 “중국이 정치적 과도기(권력교체기)를 맞아 올해 경제를 큰 폭의 성장 및 위축 없이 ‘현상유지’ 수준으로 관리할 것으로 관측되는 점도 낙관적 전망의 근거”라고 분석했다.

최근의 경제동향과 관련해서는 1~2월 중국 경제의 수출 및 생산은 부진한 모습을 보였으나 유럽 재정위기 등에도 불구하고 크게 위축되지는 않은 것으로 평가됐다.

소비는 전반적으로 부진했으나 이는 대외 요인과 더불어 1~2월 은행대출 부진 등 신용 위축의 영향 탓인 것으로 분석됐다.

하지만 국내 외 수요가 바닥을 친 것으로 보여 향후 경기 호전이 전망되며 대출 규제의 일부 완화 등도 긍정적인 효과를 발휘할 것으로 평가됐다.

반면 내부적인 위험요인도 만만치 않다는 지적이다.

지방 정부는 경기 활성화를 위해 부동산 규제를 완화하려고 하지만 중앙 정부는 이를 허용 하지 않을 것으로 보이는데다 부분적인 규제 완화가 예상되지만 큰 영향은 주지 못하는 가운데 공공주택 건설 지속에도 불구하고 민간 부문의 위축으로 부동산 시장 전반의 약세는 지속될 것으로 내다봤다.

부실채권의 경우 8조~9 조 위안 규모에 달하는 지방정부 부채의 20~30%는 부실 가능성이 높아 점진적으로 증가해 은행권 자산의 4~5%까지 이를 수도 있다는 전망이다.

당국이 은행에 2.5% 정도의 대손충당금 적립을 요구한 것은 공식 통계이상의 부실채권이 존재한다는 것을 의미한다는 것이다.

중국의 올해 물가상승률은 3.5%를 기록할 전망이며 위안화는 2~3% 절상되고 금리의 추가 인하는 없을 것으로 분석됐다.

뉴욕사무소장은 “UBS가 컨센선스에 비해 다소 낙관적인 시각을 갖고 있으며 부동산 규제 지속으로 인해 중국 경제가 과도하게 위축되진 않을 것”이라는데 공감을 표시하면서도 “정부의 부동산 가격 조정 의지에 대한 우려가 점증하고 있으나 호화 주택이 주된 타겟이고 공공주택 건설도 지속함에 따라 심각한 부동산 경기 위축으로 이어지지는 않을 것”으로 전망했다.

다만 민간 부동산 시장 위축에 대응해 최근 공공주택 신규 건설이 증가했으나 2년여 정도의 건축 공기를 고려할 때 2014년 이후에 부동산 경기가 냉각될 수도 있다는 우려를 표시했다.

[ Original Report ]

I. Introduction
When I was in China working with Bosera Asset Management, we often invited UBS to make presentations on the Chinese economy. At that time, Jon Anderson was UBS’ economist responsible for analyzing China.
He was quite good. Since then, Jon has become the head of Emerging Markets Economics for UBS and we have remained in regular contact. I have known his replacement in China, Wang Tao for only a few years. She seems very competent, but like many of the young professionals with whom I worked in China, she seems less skeptical of what Chinese authorities say, than foreigners generally are.

II. Comments by Wang Tao, Chinese Economist, UBS
“Our forecast for 2012 GDP remains at 8.5%, despite Premier Wen’s recent comment lowering the intermediate term forecast to 7.5%. That forecast represents a floor. As in the past, that floor will always be exceeded. It is a signal to local government that no large stimulus is coming, slowing is somewhat accepted. It does not mean a change to tighter policy. While the overall reported budget deficit is to be cut to 1.5% of GDP from 2%, actual cash flows will be stronger, a modest easing. In terms of Fixed Asset Investment, the government will not cut projects ? it will continue spending on social housing, water projects and developing the West, because the government relies more on investment than on consumption. There will be no major structural reform this year; small/medium enterprises will be supported with tax cuts.
The MoF is reluctant to cut the import tax on luxury items; doing that is not popular politically as it would favor foreign cosmetics, jewelry, tobacco and oil, which would not be politically correct. Taxes on imported agricultural and high tech products could continue to be reduced.
“The main domestic risk to the forecast is that the downturn in property could be more severe; on the upside, local governments’ investment could be stronger. Social housing takes an average of 2.5 years to complete. If one works out the construction schedule from the starts and completions, one can see that floor space under construction can rise significantly even with this year’s starts going down. In anticipation of the leadership transition, the government wants to operate within a narrow range to ensure that everything is smooth, no big ups, no bid downs. There will be no major stimulus, but growth will be supported. Externally, the European debt crisis could worsen again; US growth may not be sustained; there is the Iran issue and oil price - all downside risks. I suppose there are also upside risks for the European situation and US growth.
“The implications of economic data for January and February are difficult to determine due to the effect of the Chinese New Year. As a result, it is best to combine the two months together and compare that with the first two months of last year. On that basis, industrial production increased 11.4% - weakening, but not that bad. Similarly, the growth in exports fell to 6.9%, from 12% in December, but exports actually seem resilient given the problems in the Euro-zone, to which exports actually declined 1% in the first two months, whereas, to the US, growth continued at 12%. Imports increased 7.7% in January/February, a weakening since the 4Q2011 despite strength in iron ore, oil, copper and autos. Imports of machine tools and steel continued to decline. Retail sales have been slower than expected, probably due to the front loading of appliance purchases before the subsidy ended in December. Fixed asset investment has had a surprising rebound from December, especially in comparison with local on the ground surveys, which causes us to be doubtful of the true strength of FAI.
“Taken overall, the data indicate that domestic consumption activity is relatively weak, but there are signs of it warming up. There appears to be a bottoming of external and domestic demand, but it depends upon credit. Bank lending in January and February was slightly lower. The loan/deposit ratio is now a constraint on smaller banks, which should lessen soon. Demand for credit in the private sector dropped due to exports and construction. For March we expect strong new loans, a modest easing of policy, which will be supportive of investment.
“There are credit constraints on lending to the property sector, as well as local concerns. There have been repeated attempt by local governments to ease which have been put down by the central government, but still at the margin, if anything, there has been a bit of loosening. We expect weakness in property to continue in the private sector with starts coming down, offset by an increase in social housing. We do not expect the government to tighten policies further, and think Premier Wen’s statement that “housing prices are far from returning to a reasonable level” confirms our expectation that the current policy restrictions will remain largely unchanged this year. At the margin, however, we think the recent relaxation of first mortgage lending and lending to developers for normal commodity housing constitutes a “fine-tuning” of property policies.
“Officially NPL’s in the Chinese banking system are just slightly over 1%. There is lots of doubt about this statistic. The increase in regulatory required reserves to 2.5% implies the official figure is very low. With lending to local governments of 8-9 trillion RMB, if we assume 20-30% will go bad, that would be 4-5% of banking sector loans, which will be recognized gradually. The direction of NPL’s is definitely increasing, slowly. The quality of projects deteriorated during the last few years; the bad projects during the stimulus will become NPL’s.
“Inflation has come down more than expected to 3.2%. It should bottom at 2.5-2.8% in the 1Q. We still project 3.5% for the whole year, primarily because food, and particularly pork, prices will rise in the fall. In this relatively weak environment, another cut in the reserve requirement may happen in the 1H2012. No change is expected in FX policy; we expect the RMB to rise 2-3% this year. There is no room to cut interest rates, which are barely positive. Interest rate liberalization of deposit and lending rates will come very slowly. Policymakers are still worried about capital inflows. The inflation target is 4%, which is seen as a ceiling. If it undershoots they will not ease. Nor will they tighten if it goes up toward the end of the year. There is more of a growth bias.

III. Concluding Comments
Wang Tao’s comments generally reflect confidence in the Chinese economy and expectations of continued stability in economic growth and policy management. Her interpretation of and confidence in government policy may be challenged in the property sector, where the government is trying to induce an adjustment in average property prices, by differentiating between normal (self-occupancy) housing versus luxury (speculative investment demand) housing, while providing support for social housing construction, so that overall economic growth is not greatly affected.
It is reminiscent to me of my time working in Japan from 1986-1990, and in particular of a private meeting which I had with the head of economic research at the BoJ. He indicated to me that their objective in raising interest rates was to cause property prices to increase less than the rate of inflation. I observed that if property investors expected prices would rise less than inflation and borrowing costs, that they should logically sell which would drive prices down. The head of research indicated that perhaps as a foreigner I did not understand how things worked in Japan ? that they would control things such that property prices would rise less than inflation. Obviously in hindsight, property prices in Japan subsequently fell much more and for much longer than either of us would have imagined.
Is the Chinese property market in a similar situation? I don’t know. Clearly the Chinese economy now is in a much earlier phase of development than Japan was twenty four years ago. That should mean a significant pent-up demand for improved housing for many people who are moving up to the middle class. Furthermore, policy makers have the advantage of knowing what Japan went through and attempting to avoid repeating that mistake. But it may not be easy for policymakers to target a significant sub-sector (the luxury market) without impacting the economy more than they intend. A continuing large increase in national and local government spending on social housing should more than offset a decline in the luxury end this year. With social housing starts expected to decline in 2012, that might set the stage for a downturn in the property sector in 2014.

임창섭 NSP통신 기자, news1@nspna.com
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