译者 arriell
A statue of the former Chinese chairman Mao Zedong stands in front of an apartment building in the Miyun county, 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of Beijing January 31, 2012.
一座毛泽东雕像竖立在北京密云县一栋住宅楼前。密云县位于北京北部,距北京市60千米(40英里)——2012年1月31日。
Credit: Reuters/David Gray
来源:路透/大卫格雷
(Reuters) - What do a luxury Chinese apartment tower, a workers' dormitory, a low-income housing block and an empty field have in common?
(路透)- 一栋豪华的公寓高楼,一栋工人宿舍楼,一个低收入住宅区和一片空地之间的共同点是什么?
They all qualify as affordable housing projects under a government scheme that policymakers hope will cool popular anger over high housing prices, and that analysts are counting on to keep China's property sector afloat.
他们都可以被纳入政府计划的经济适用房项目。政府决策人希望通过这一计划能浇灭普通民众对高房价的怒火,分析师们也指望着它能使中国房地产市场继续维持高位。
The program, which targets 36 million units of new housing by 2015 at a cost of nearly $800 billion, has underpinned demand for steel, cement and metals from the world's second-largest economy as the larger real estate sector cools.
这个经济适用房项目预算近八千亿美元,规划到2015年建成3600万套新房。虽然整个房地产行业正在降温,但这个计划可以强力支撑中国作为全球第二大经济体对于钢铁,水泥及金属的需求。
But the huge numbers don't add up to enough to ease concerns that the Chinese economy is paying the price for the government's crackdown on "speculative" real estate projects.
但是这么庞大的数字并不足以减轻对于中国经济因为压制“投机”房地产市场而正在付出代价的忧虑。
"It's an illusion to try to hang on to the notion that social housing will have a massive pull on raw materials in China. It does have a pull but not significant enough" to make up for freezing commercial real estate spending, said Nicholas Zhu, of ANZ Bank in Shanghai.
来自澳新银行上海分行的朱尼克拉斯认为,“如果坚持认为保障性住房可以大幅拉动中国的原材料市场,那是错觉。它不会拉动太多的”,它并不足够弥补因商品房市场的冻结而产生的损失。
To gauge the status of the scheme, Reuters visited a dozen building sites in the dusty city of Shijiazhuang south of Beijing. A middle-income city of 10 million, including satellite towns, Shijiazhuang is one of the few to have published a public list of its affordable housing projects.
为了了解这个计划的情况,路透到位于北京以南的一个满是灰尘的城市石家庄造访了十几座楼址。石家庄是一个拥有一千万人口的中等收入城市。包括卫星城在内,石家庄是全国少数几个公布了经济适用房项目名单的城市。
Tall towers rising from flat fields and former industrial sites laid to rest the assumption of some that local governments are simply faking affordable housing starts to meet central government targets. In Shijiazhuang at least, the projects are real.
从平地和工业旧址上升起的高楼大厦可以排除石家庄地方政府在用假的经济适用房迎合中央政府。至少在这里,这个项目是真的。
But a good portion of what's being built is already-planned construction re-labeled as affordable housing. Those projects aren't delivering the additional demand for concrete, steel, glass or aluminum window frames that typically ensure that construction gives an outsized boost to economic growth.
但是在建中的很多楼房一大部分都已包括在之前的规划里,只是被贴上了经济适用房的标签。它们并不会产生对水泥,钢铁,玻璃和铝制i玻璃框的额外需求,而正是这些需求才能保证建筑业推动经济大幅增长。
If the affordable housing program cannot deliver additional demand, the restrictions on commercial housing may deliver a greater blow to the broader economy than Beijing intended.
如果经济适用房不能产生额外的需求,那么限制商品房对经济的影响可能会比北京政府所期望的还要大。
For two years, China has restricted bank lending to the real estate sector and limited citizens' ability to buy multiple homes, or homes in other cities, to curb speculation in high-end housing. The campaign has finally started to impact prices.
过去的两年里,为了遏制投机高档住房,中国一直在严格控制银行贷款,限制市民购买多套住房和异地购房,这些举措现在终于开始影响房价。
OFF-MARKET HOUSING
场外住房
Reuters visited projects ranging from tall towers of flats measuring 60 square meters or less -- what most Chinese would call affordable housing -- to factory and school dormitories. At least two projects were part of luxury housing developments.
路透造访的项目涵盖60平米左右的公寓楼和工厂学校宿舍楼。其中至少有两个项目曾是奢侈住房开发的一部分。而大部分中国人认为60平米的公寓楼才是经济适用房。
This seems to reflect what is happening across China.
这似乎可以说明中国境内正在发生什么事。
Recent government announcements indicate that new off-market, affordable housing units will increasingly be made up of reclassified, non-commercial projects like dormitories attached to schools, hospitals, government departments and state-owned enterprises.
最近政府发布的公告表明新的场外经济适用房将会包括更多非商业项目,比如附属于学校,医院,政府部门和国有企业的宿舍。这些房子都已被重新划分为经济适用房。
"There's a big difference between government definitions and what a normal person would consider an 'affordable house'," said GK Dragonomics research manager Rosealea Yao.
龙舟经济研究经理姚罗希拉说:“政府和普通民众给‘经济适用房’下的定义非常不同”。
Reclassification jibes with a shift in official targets from housing starts -- which critics charge are easily faked -- to completions. Beijing targets 5 million completions this year, up from the official count of 4.32 million completed last year.
这种重新分类与官方目标的计算方法从房屋开工率到完成量的转换一致。评论家就批评过房屋开工率很容易被作假。北京的今年目标是完成500万套,比去年有所提升,去年完成量的官方数据是432万套。
Nationwide, affordable housing numbers are confusing. Premier Wen Jiabao said last year that China would build 36 million units by 2015, with 10 million to start building in 2011 alone, as citizens seethed over red-hot property prices.
从全国范围来看,经济适用房的数据令人困惑。在市民因房价高涨而激动的时期,温家宝总理说从2011年开始到2015年全国要建成3600万套住房,仅2011一年就要建造1000万套。
Beijing then retreated in the face of limited local budgets and allegations that corrupt insiders get dibs on homes. It shelved plans for subsidized apartments to sell to low-income buyers in favour of modest apartments to rent to the poor.
之后北京因为地方预算有限,并声称腐败分子会内定房子而退出。然后它开始支持廉租房,并把出售补贴住房给低收入购房者的计划搁置一旁。
The target for 2012 starts is now 7 million units.
目前2012年的目标是700万套。
Many analysts felt that the original target was so far from reality that actual starts this year may exceed last year. Official, yet widely disbelieved, statistics put affordable home starts at 10.43 million in 2011.
许多分析家感到最开始设立的目标和现实相差很远,今年的实际开工率可能会超过去年。关于2011年经济适用房开工率的官方数据是1043万套,但是这个数据广被质疑。
Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimates that the number of units actually under construction will rise to 7.3 million this year from 3.7 million in 2011.
美银美林测算今年的实际在建楼房将从2011年的370万套上涨至730万套,
"Social housing starts have been overstated, but still the increase in construction of off-market housing will more than offset the fall in the market segment," said a recent report by Beijing-based consultancy GK Dragonomics.
位于北京的龙舟经济咨询公司最近发布的报告称: “保障性住房的开工率虽然被夸大了,但是场外住房建筑量的增长将会足够抵消商品房市场的下滑”。
Not so, says ANZ's Zhu. His back-of-the-envelope calculations show that government targets for affordable housing would absorb only about 50 million tones of steel.
澳新银行的尼古拉斯持相反意见。根据他粗略的计算,政府的经济适用房建设目标只能吸收大约5000万吨钢铁。
That's only one-sixth of China's construction steel output, meaning that the real estate freeze can still create a dangerous glut.
才只占到中国钢铁产量的六分之一。这就意味着房产市场的冻结依然可以导致危险的供过于求。
EXCUSE TO RELAX
放松的理由
Even if reclassified projects don't represent new demand per se, they could allow the government to declare victory and relax the controls strangling the commercial property sector.
即使被重新分类的那些项目本身并不代表需求的增加,政府依然可以借此宣布胜利并放松管制商品房市场的力度。
Three sites visited by Reuters in Shijiazhuang turned out to be newly completed dormitories. Two were at factories and the third was a teachers' dorm for a rural high school.
路透在石家庄参观的建筑中有三座就是完全新建的宿舍楼,其中两座在工厂,第三座在农村高中,是老师的宿舍楼。
Beijing is "taking a two-pronged approach of temporarily repressing demand for commercial units and also building lower-priced housing for the population that's been priced out of the commercial market," said CLSA strategist Andy Rothman.
法国里昂证券战略专家安迪罗斯曼说北京“正采用双管齐下的方法,一方面暂时抑制住对商品房的需求,另一方面为支付不起商品房的人建造低价住房”,
"Once they make progress on both fronts they can ease the current restrictions on commercial home sales."
“如果两个方面都取得进展,北京就会放松对出售商品房的管制”。
Some property developers are committing to build affordable housing to get approval for more lucrative developments. That lets local governments balance their budgets with land sales.
一些开发商正积极的建造经济适用房,以便能获得开发更多盈利性的工程的许可。这也使地方政府能通过出售土地来平衡预算。
Some cities use "slum clearing" to move poorer residents out of the valuable city centre and auction off the land to yet another glitzy developer. As of 2010, about 90 percent of Shanghai's "affordable housing" units qualified as "slum clearing," versus 40 percent nationally, land use data showed.
一些城市通过“拆迁贫民区”把贫穷的居民从值钱的市中心赶出去,再把土地拍卖给开发商。土地利用数据显示,截至2010年,上海大约90%的“经济适用房”就符合“拆迁贫民区”的条件,全国有40%。
At the luxury "European Landscape" compound in Jinzhou, near Shijiazhuang, an affordable housing block was tucked into a commercial development with decidedly upscale ambitions.
在临近石家庄的锦州,奢华的“欧洲风景”别墅区虽然属于经济适用房计划,却被改成商业开发,很显然是为了迎合上层消费的需求,
"The top sterling villa-community of Jinzhou! The ecological slope-courtyard, the coastal holiday-villa!" a brochure boasted.
宣传小册上赫然写着:“锦州最上等的别墅小区!坐山临海,生态度假!”
"European Landscape" and its sisters target demand for investment properties at the high end of the market.
“欧洲风景”以及与其类似的小区都是为了迎合高端市场的投资需求。
But urbanizing China needs new homes for young couples and replacement for the cramped quarters endured by many, especially migrant workers. GK Dragonomics estimates that 40 percent of people in Chinese cities don't own their own home.
但是中国的都市化需要给年轻夫妇提供新家,并更新流动人口拥挤的居住地。龙舟经济估算中国城市里有40%的人口没有自己的家。
China needs to build 10 million units a year until 2030 to meet a 70 million unit shortfall and upgrade shoddy housing.
到2030年为止,中国每年需要建造1000万套房子以满足7000万套的空缺,并需要把劣质的房子更新换代。
"All we are waiting for is for the real estate developers to recognize they have got to switch away from the speculative real estate market to affordable housing - not just the ones the government is requiring them to build, but affordable housing in a wider sense for first-time buyers," said Rafael Halpin of MEPS, a British steel consultancy.
来自英国钢铁咨询公司麦普斯的拉菲尔哈尔平说:“我们现在只期望房地产开发商能意识到他们应该把目光从投机性房地产转移到经济适用房。不仅仅是因为政府的要求,从更广义上来看,也要为首次买房的人盖他们买得起的房子,”
"Once you see that transition, you have a second property boom driven by real demand." ($1 = 6.2985 Chinese yuan)
“只要能转变成功,那么真正的住房需求必会推动房地产开始第二轮的繁荣”。(1美元=6.2985元人民币)
(Additional reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Don Durfee, Nick Edwards and Nick Macfie)
(补充报道:大卫斯坦威;编辑:唐德菲,尼克爱德华和尼克麦克菲)
from 译言-每日精品译文推荐 http://article.yeeyan.org/view/224354/255432