中國去產能到底該由誰來買單
“Policies come from above, counter-reactions from below” goes a proverb cited to explain the Chinese government’s opaque inner workings.
有人用一句俗語來解釋中國政府不透明的內部運作：“上有政策，下有對策”。
That phenomenon has been on open display at the annual session of the National People’s Congress, where a central government plan to tackle industrial overcapacity has met a chorus of complaints over who is to foot the bill.
此次中國全國人大年度會議就暴露出這種現象。中央政府計劃要解決工業產能過剩，卻因誰來買單的問題而遭到一致抱怨。
For the past two weeks, Beijing has acknowledged that solving the problem will involve job losses — almost 6m, by some estimates. Beijing has proposed that central government should establish a Rmb100bn ($15bn) fund to retrain workers but specified that local governments and the companies must foot part of the bill. In return, banks would be expected to provide new loans.
過去兩週，北京方面已承認解決這個問題將引發失業。據部分人估計，失業人數將達600萬。北京方面提出中央政府應成立1000億元人民幣（合150億美元）專項獎補資金，用於職工的再培訓，但規定地方政府及企業必須承擔部分費用。作爲回報，銀行預計會提供新的貸款。
“Enterprises should be the major actors, local governments should play a co-ordinating role and central government should provide due support, while the responsibility for making sure that overcapacity reductions happen in a locality will be on the relevant provincial-level government,” the finance ministry said in its annual report.
中國財政部在年度報告中表示：“堅持‘市場倒逼、企業主體、地方組織、中央支持’……省級政府對本地區化解過剩產能負總責。”
The problem with this cost-sharing solution is that local governments in coal, oil or steel-dependent regions are seeing their revenues hit as their local champions go broke. While apparently supportive of Premier Li Keqiang’s plan, regional representatives have been using the NPC to suggest Beijing should be shouldering more of the burden.
這種成本分攤方案的問題在於，在那些依賴煤炭、石油或鋼鐵行業的地區，隨着本地龍頭企業相繼破產，地方政府的財政收入也將受到衝擊。地方代表們雖貌似支持中國總理李克強的計劃，但一直在利用全國人大會議暗示中央政府應擔起更多責任。
Lu Hao, governor of resource-dependent Heilongjiang province on the border with Siberia, is one of them. In the past two years the province has weathered protests by unpaid teachers and angry pensioners of China National Petroleum Corp, the national oil company. In October, state-owned Longmay Coal announced it would have to lay off 100,000 of its 248,000 workers.
黑龍江省省長陸昊就是其中一員。毗鄰西伯利亞的黑龍江省是個資源依賴型省份。過去兩年，該省頻發抗議活動，抗議者有被欠薪的教師，還有國企中國石油天然氣集團公司(CNPC)憤怒的退休員工。去年10月，擁有24.8萬名員工的國企龍煤(Longmay)宣佈將被迫裁員10萬人。
Longmay’s wage bill was equivalent to a third of Heilongjiang’s revenues, Mr Lu pointed out in a provincial NPC session. The drop in oil prices meant Rmb10bn less in taxes, while central-government mandated minimum grain prices cost the province Rmb12bn out of its Rmb116.5bn budget, he said.
陸昊在全國人大黑龍江省代表團會議期間指出，龍煤一年的工資總額相當於全省政府性基金預算收入的三分之一。他表示，油價下降導致本級財政減收100億元人民幣，同時中央政府規定的最低糧食價格，導致該省1165億元人民幣的預算收入減收120億元人民幣。
Other coal-dependent provinces were more blunt. The Shaanxi provincial work report paid lip service to Mr Li’s idea of addressing “zombie companies” that are in effect bankrupt. Its solution — “central government subsidies”.
其他依賴煤炭的省份更加直言不諱。陝西省工作報告口頭上支持李克強對於清理實際已經破產的“殭屍企業”的想法，而其解決方案卻是“爭取中央專項獎補資金”。
Fiscal reforms are supposed to increase local government’s share of tax revenue but the plans to shut debt-laden production lines and officially recognise workers who have not been paid in months as unemployed are increasing the strain on local coffers.
財政改革本應增加地方政府稅收份額，但關閉負債累累的生產線、正式承認被欠薪數月的工人爲失業的計劃，將加大地方財政的壓力。
Zhang Jie, of the National Academy of Development and Strategy at Renmin University in Beijing, said local governments with a dwindling revenue base might not have the money for over-capacity reduction plans. “To tackle the great obstacles facing the overcapacity reduction efforts in these regions from both local interests and existing economic development challenges, it’s necessary for the central government to directly set up funds,” he said.
中國人民大學國家發展與戰略研究院的張傑表示，部分地方政府收入基礎不斷縮小，可能沒有資金實施去產能計劃。他表示：“針對這些特定地區的去產能工作中可能面臨的巨大地方利益阻力以及現實存在的經濟發展挑戰，有必要由中央政府直接出臺……專項基金。”
Meanwhile, regions with a smaller state-owned enterprise lobby are balking at bailing out state companies at all.
同時，國企遊說力量較弱的地區則不願爲國有企業紓困。
“There’s no need to pay a lot of money to compensate companies for shutting down their equipment,” argued Xie Chaoying, director of the Economic and Information Commission of the southern province of Hunan. “The government’s duty is to effectively serve the workers laid off from the overcapacity reduction so that those who can still get another job get the training needed, those who are unemployable get unemployment insurance, and those whose situations are worse get social benefits.”
湖南省經濟和信息化委員會主任謝超英表示：“沒有必要再拿大量的資金把人家的設備拆掉，又補錢給他……政府的責任是對於在去產能過程中出現的待崗工人，怎麼有效地服務，能夠轉行的進行培訓，失業的有失業保險，再不行還有最低保障。”
