Soaring Dollar Hurts Emerging Economies
美元飆 新興經濟體受害
By Neil Irwin

In India, a leading electric utility, Jaiprakash Power Ventures, is selling off facilities and negotiating with lenders to avoid a default, having increasing its debts thirtyfold in six years. In China, one of the country’s largest real estate developers, the Kaisa Group, is threatening to pay only 2.4 cents on the dollar to its creditors. And in Brazil, bankruptcies among sugar producers have been driven not just by falling sugar prices, but by debts they owe in dollars.
在印度，知名電力公司「賈普拉卡什電力創業」6年內負債增至30倍，正出售設施並與債主協商以免倒債。在大陸，最大房地產開發商之一「佳兆業集團」威脅債權人說，每一美元借款只會償還2.4美分。在巴西，製糖業者破產不僅因糖價暴跌，還因美元債務沉重。

The soaring value of the American dollar is threatening emerging economies where companies have taken on trillions’ worth of dollar-based debt in recent years.
美元持續飆高正對新興經濟體造成威脅，這些經濟體的企業近年背負了數兆以美元計價的債務。

The dollar rally has been driven by decisions by the Federal Reserve, whose actions are having outsize, often unpredictable, effect across the globe, owing to the dollar’s central role in the global financial system. Years of low-interest-rate policies from the Fed have encouraged companies in these fast-growing economies to borrow dollars because they could do it more cheaply than if they took out loans in their local currencies, like the Indian rupee or Brazilian real. So they did. By September 2014 there were $9.2 trillion of such dollar loans outside the United States, up 50 percent since 2009, according to the Bank for International Settlements.
美元上漲動力來自美國聯準會的決定，由於美元在全球金融體系扮演中心角色，聯準會的行動正持續在全球發揮極大且經常難以逆料的效應。聯準會多年來的低利率政策鼓勵這些迅速成長經濟體的企業以美元計價貸款，因為這比以本國貨幣，如印度盧比或巴西里爾貸款便宜。因此他們紛紛如此做。國際清算銀行統計，截至2014年9月，美國以外市場的美元貸款總額高達9.2兆美元，較2009年增加50%。

The dollar is up 25 percent against a basket of commonly used international currencies.
美元兌一籃子常用國際貨幣的匯率已上升25%。

“Now that the dollar has strengthened and rates are on the rise, it presents a risk and a challenge to many emerging markets in that their debts have become more onerous, more burdensome,” said Hung Tran, an executive managing director at the Institute of International Finance, an association of global banks. “The challenge for authorities in emerging market countries is to understand to what degree their corporate sector is naked or exposed.”
「國際金融協會」執行常務董事洪川說：「美元走強和利率上升對許多新興市場構成風險和挑戰，因為它們的債務變得更加繁重累人。新興市場國家當局面臨的挑戰是，必須了解他們的企業裸露或是曝險的程度。」

Companies in emerging markets that are primarily exporters might be O.K., because their revenue is in dollars, and so it should keep pace with rising debt service obligations. But for those focused domestically, like real estate developers or electric utilities, a more expensive dollar can make it much more costly to service debts.
以出口為主的新興市場國家，其企業可能並無大礙，因為營收也以美元計價，跟得上債務上升的腳步。但那些以內需為主的經濟體，例如仰賴房地產或電力公司等產業的經濟體，美元升值意味企業的還債成本增加。

Hyun Song Shin, who heads research at the Bank for International Settlements, argues that a rising dollar has an effect of tightening the supply of money across the global economy. A Malaysian company doing business with a South Korean company will frequently carry out transactions in dollars.
國際清算銀行研究部主管申鉉松指出，美元升值會為全球經濟帶來貨幣供給緊張的效應。一家馬來西亞公司跟一家南韓公司做生意時，將會經常使用美元交易。

Dollars will now be available on more stringent terms. Clearly, decisions made by Janet Yellen, the Fed chairwoman, and her Washington colleagues can have a big effect on transactions even when no American companies are involved.
現今，美元的取得條件也變嚴了。顯然，美國聯準會主席珍妮特．葉倫及其華府同僚所做決定會大大影響這些交易，即使這些交易並不涉及美國企業。

In some economists’ ears, that creates echoes of the crises that crushed East Asian economies in the late 1990s and Latin American economies in the early 2000s. The biggest difference is that private companies, not governments, have incurred debt in a currency not their own.
這讓某些經濟學家想起1990年代末期整垮東亞經濟體，2000年代初期讓拉丁美洲經濟體不支的兩次危機。最大差異是這回背負非本國貨幣債務的，是私人企業而非政府。

The rising dollar and falling emerging-market currencies cut both ways. As companies that gorged on dollar debt run into trouble, falling currency values make exporters more competitive on global markets.
美元升而新興市場貨幣貶是把雙面刃。企業因背負龐大美元債務而陷入困境，本國幣貶值則讓出口商於全球市場更具競爭力。

The International Monetary Fund projects that emerging economies worldwide will grow 4.3 percent this year, compared with 2.4 percent for the advanced economies.
國際貨幣基金預測，全球新興經濟體今年經濟成長率為4.3%，先進經濟體則為2.4%。

As Raghuram Rajan, the Reserve Bank of India’s governor, told Bloomberg Television, “Borrowing in dollars is like playing Russian roulette, especially if you’re borrowing relatively short term.”
印度央行行長拉古拉姆．拉詹告訴彭博電視台：「借入美元有如玩俄羅斯輪盤賭，短期借款尤其如此。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/upshot/how-a-rising-dollar-is-creating-trouble-for-emerging-economies.html

2015-04-07聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 王麗娟譯 原文參見紐時週報八版右