惠譽下調日本信用評級
Fitch has slashed Japan’s sovereign rating from A plus to A, judging the world’s fourth-largest economy a worse credit risk than Malta or Estonia.
惠譽(Fitch)將日本的主權信用評級從“A+”下調至“A”，認爲全球第四大經濟體的信用風險比馬耳他或愛沙尼亞更糟糕。The credit rating agency said it acted because the government of Shinzo Abe did not offset the lost revenue from last year’s delay in raising consumption tax.
這家信用評級機構表示，之所以採取此舉，是因爲安倍晉三(Shinzo Abe)政府沒有彌補因去年暫緩提高消費稅帶來的財政收入損失。
The downgrade is unlikely to have much immediate effect — domestic confidence in Japan’s public debt has survived bigger shocks — but it highlights a steady deterioration in the country’s public finances at a time when the central bank has embarked on an unprecedented Y80tn ($670bn) a year bond-buying programme.
降級不太可能立即產生太大影響（日本國內對本國公債的信心經受過更大沖擊），但此舉凸顯日本公共財政狀況持續惡化，而眼下日本央行正推行史無前例的每年80萬億日元（合6700億美元）債券購買計劃。
An A is the sixth notch on Fitch’s rating scale. That puts it one notch below Moody’s, which downgraded Japan late last year, and two notches below Standard & Poor’s.
A是惠譽評級尺度上的第六級，比穆迪(Moody's)去年末對日本下調後的評級還要低一級，比標準普爾(Standard & Poor’s)的評級低兩級。“Japan’s main sovereign credit and rating weakness is the high and rising level of government debt,” said the agency. “Fitch projects the gross general government debt-to-GDP [gross domestic product] ratio to rise to 244 per cent of GDP by end-2015, by far the highest ratio of any rated sovereign.”
惠譽表示：“日本的主權信用與評級的主要弱點是政府債務水平過高且在不斷增加。惠譽預計到2015年底，日本政府債務總額與國內生產總值(GDP)之比將升至244%，這將是受到評級的所有主權發債人中遙遙領先的最高比率。”Japan’s public debt has increased rapidly over the past 20 years as social security spending rose, tax revenues stagnated and successive governments used fiscal stimulus to try and revive growth.
過去20年日本公債增長迅速，原因是社保支出上升，稅收收入停滯，而且歷屆政府試圖用財政刺激恢復增長。The government has been able to draw on a large pool of domestic savings, however, financing itself at extremely low interest rates. That means it has never come close to a debt crisis despite repeated predictions.
然而，日本政府一直能夠利用國內龐大的儲蓄資金池，以極低的利率爲自己融資。這意味着日本從未接近過債務危機，儘管這方面的預測出現過多次。Andrew Colquhoun, head of Asia-Pacific sovereigns at Fitch, said the rating reflected the extremes of Japan’s position: weak public finances and economic growth combined with a strong polity and little external debt.
惠譽亞太區主權評級主管高瀚德(Andrew Colquhoun)表示，這個評級反映出日本地位的一些極端：公共財政和經濟增長疲軟，但政體強大，外債很少。“The Japanese sovereign’s exceptionally strong financing flexibility supports the ratings, despite weaknesses and vulnerabilities elsewhere in the public finances,” said Fitch.
惠譽表示：“日本主權異常強大的融資靈活性支持了對其信用的評級，儘管公共財政其他方面存在弱點和脆弱性。”“Sovereign funding flexibility rests mainly on the massive stock of savings of the Japanese private sector and the strong ‘home bias’ with which these savings are invested.”
“主權融資的靈活性主要依靠日本私人部門的大量儲蓄，以及這些儲蓄在投資目的地上的強烈‘本土偏向’。”Mr Colquhoun said Fitch will be looking at a government fiscal consolidation strategy, due this summer, to see whether it puts debt-to-GDP ratios on a downward path.
高瀚德表示，惠譽將關注日本政府定於今夏公佈的財政整頓策略，看它能否讓債務與GDP之比進入下行軌道。As important as the strategy itself, he said, will be the government’s commitment to implementing it. Any further delay in raising consumption tax, from 8 to 10 per cent, now scheduled for April 2017, would be a negative.
高瀚德說，與該策略本身一樣重要的將是政府推行策略的承諾。日本政府目前定於2017年4月把消費稅從8%調高至10%，進一步拖延將產生消極影響。
