纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国拯救楼市新举措鼓励地方政府收购库存商品房

In a housing crisis that shows no end, the Chinese government is stepping in as a buyer of last resort.

在这场看不到尽头的房地产危机中，中国政府正以最后买家的身份介入。

Chinese officials on Friday took their boldest step yet, unveiling a nationwide plan to buy up some of the vast housing stock languishing on the market. They also loosened rules for mortgages. The central bank said it would provide $41.5 billion in cheap loans to help state-owned enterprises buy housing built but not sold.

上周五，中国官员迈出了迄今为止最大胆的一步，公布了一项全国性计划，收购市场上大量闲置的部分住房。他们还放宽了抵押贷款的规定。中国央行表示，将提供3000亿元的低息贷款，帮助国有企业购买已建成但尚未出售的住房。

The flurry of activity occurred just hours after new economic data revealed a hard truth: No one wants to buy houses right now.

就在这一串新举措公布的几个小时之前，新的经济数据揭示了一个残酷的事实：现在没有人愿意买房。

Policymakers have tried dozens of measures to entice home buyers and reverse a steep decline in the property market, which has shown few signs of recovering soon.

政策制定者已经尝试了数十种措施来吸引购房者，扭转房地产市场急剧下滑的趋势，但市场几乎没有显示出很快复苏的迹象。

On Friday, authorities from across China dialed in to a video conference to discuss the challenges they faced. China’s vice premier, He Lifeng, announced a major shift in the government’s approach to dealing with the property crunch, which has prompted households to cut spending. Mr. He said local governments could begin to buy homes to start dealing with the huge numbers of empty apartments.

上周五，中国各地有关部门召开视频会议，讨论面临的挑战。中国副总理何立峰宣布，政府应对房地产危机的方式将发生重大转变。房地产危机已促使家庭削减支出。他说，地方政府可以开始购买房屋，着手解决大量空置公寓的问题。

The government-purchased homes would then be used to provide affordable housing. Mr. He did not provide any details on when such a program would begin or how it would be funded.

政府购买的住房将用于提供经济适用房。何立峰没有提供有关该计划何时启动或如何获得资金的细节。

The approach is similar to the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which the U.S. government established in 2008 to buy troubled assets after the collapse of the American housing market, said Larry Hu, chief China economist for Macquarie Group, an Australian financial firm.

澳大利亚麦格理集团首席中国经济学家胡伟俊表示，这种做法类似于美国政府在2008年设立的问题资产救助计划（简称TARP），目的是在美国房地产市场崩溃后购买问题资产。

“It’s a shift in policy in the sense that now local governments are getting into the market to buy property directly,” Mr. Hu said.

“现在地方政府正在进入市场直接购买房产，从某种意义上说，这是政策的转变，”胡伟俊说。

Some local governments have already been quietly testing out the approach in cities like Jinan, Tianjin and Qingdao along China’s coast, and Chengdu in the south, but this is the first time a senior Chinese official has said anything about it on a national stage.

在中国沿海的济南、天津和青岛，以及南方的成都等城市，一些地方政府已经悄悄地对这种做法进行了试验，但这是中国高级官员第一次在全国范围内谈论这种做法。

Addressing officials on Friday, Mr. He said they had to “fight the tough battle” of dealing with all the unfinished property around the country, according to an official account from the Chinese state media outlet Xinhua.

据中国官方媒体新华社的官方报道，何立峰在周五对官员发表讲话时表示，必须打好“攻坚战”，处理全国各地所有未完工的房地产。

The government’s official data shows that Beijing has a long way to go to increase confidence in the real estate market. The amount of unsold homes is at a record high, and property prices are declining at a record pace.

政府官方数据显示，北京在增强对房地产市场信心方面还有很长的路要走。未售出房屋的数量创历史新高，房地产价格也在以创纪录的速度下跌。

The inventory of unsold homes was equivalent to 748 million square meters, or more than eight billion square feet, as of March, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. In April, new home prices in 70 cities fell 3.5 percent from a year earlier, while prices for existing homes fell 6.8 percent, both record-breaking declines.

根据中国国家统计局的数据，截至3月份，未售出房屋的库存相当于7.48亿平米。今年4月，70个城市的新房价格同比下跌3.5%，二手房价格下跌6.8%，都是破纪录的跌幅。

Hours after the numbers on home prices were released on Friday, China’s central bank took steps to encourage home purchases by slashing requirements on down payments. It also did away with a nationwide mortgage interest rate.

上周五，在房价数据公布数小时后，中国央行采取措施，大幅降低首付要求以鼓励购房。它下调了全国范围内的抵押贷款利率。

“Policymakers are desperate to boost sales,” said Rosealea Yao, a real estate expert at Gavekal, a China-focused research firm. The central bank has been lowering mortgage rates for several years and the average rate before this move was already at a record low.

“政策制定者迫切希望提振销售，”专注于中国市场的研究公司龙洲经讯的房地产专家咬丽蔷说。央行几年来一直在降低抵押贷款利率，此次降低之前的平均利率已经处于历史低点。

China’s leaders have set a goal of about 5 percent economic growth this year, a plan that many independent economists believe is ambitious and will require aggressive government spending.

中国领导人设定了今年5%左右的经济增长目标，许多独立经济学家认为这一计划很有雄心，需要政府大力支出。

To that end, China also said on Friday that it had raised $5.5 billion from its first sale of 30-year bonds as part of an effort to raise $140 billion over the next six months.

为此，中国还在周五表示，已通过首次发行30年期债券筹集了400亿元，这是未来六个月总共筹集一万亿元计划的一部分。

China’s property crisis has been fueled by years of heavy borrowing by property developers and overbuilding that underpinned much of the country’s remarkable decades-long run of rapid economic growth.

中国房地产危机的起因是房地产开发商多年来的大量借贷和过度建设，而这正是中国数十年来令人瞩目的快速经济增长的基础。

But when the government finally intervened in 2020 to put an end to risky practices by developers, many companies were already on the precipice of collapse. One of its biggest property developers, China Evergrande, defaulted in late 2021 under huge piles of debt. It left behind hundreds of thousands of unfinished apartments and unpaid bills worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

但当政府最终在2020年进行干预以结束开发商的风险行为时，许多公司已经处于崩溃边缘。中国最大的房地产开发商之一中国恒大在2021年底因巨额债务违约，留下了数十万套未完工的公寓和价值数千亿美元的未付账单。

The real estate crisis has left many Chinese families, which once poured their life savings into property, without viable alternatives for building wealth. They have few other good options since China’s stock market, although it has recovered in recent months, remains volatile.

房地产危机让许多将毕生积蓄投入房地产的中国家庭失去了积累财富的可行选择。由于中国股市仍然动荡不安（尽管近几个月来有所回升），投资者几乎没有其他好的选择。

Evergrande was the first in a string of high-profile defaults that now punctuate the industry. A Hong Kong court ordered the company to be liquidated in January. Another beleaguered real estate giant, Country Garden, had its first hearing on Friday in a Hong Kong court in a case brought by an investor seeking the company’s liquidation.

恒大是一系列备受瞩目的违约事件中的第一起，这些事件如今已成为房地产行业的标志性事件。今年1月，香港一家法院下令对该公司进行清算。另一家陷入困境的房地产巨头碧桂园周五在香港一家法院举行了首次听证会，该案由一名寻求清算该公司的投资者提起。