China’s small-loan providers have virtually halved lending as the slowing economy turns both lenders and borrowers more wary of risk.
随着中国经济放缓，贷款机构和借款者对风险警惕性增加，中国小额贷款公司发放的贷款几乎减少一半。
New loans from China’s 8,591 small-loan providers came to just Rmb89bn ($14.5bn) in the first nine months of 2014, virtually half the Rmb161bn level in the same period last year, according to central bank data.
据央行最新数据，今年头9个月，中国共计8591家小额贷款公司新增贷款仅为890亿元人民币 (合145亿美元)，几乎是去年同期1610亿元人民币的一半。

Policy makers have encouraged the rise of small loan providers – which typically range from Rmb50,000 to Rmb5m – since a wave of defaults on informal debt in the light-manufacturing hub of Wenzhou in 2011 sparked bankruptcies and several suicides.
2011年，轻工业中心温州出现的一波非正规贷款违约浪潮，导致多家公司破产，数人自杀，此后政策制定者一直鼓励小额贷款公司的发展。这些贷款公司的规模贷款规模一般介于5万元人民币至500万元人民币之间。
Small and medium-sized enterprises account for about 60 per cent of China’s gross domestic product and 75 per cent of new jobs but have long struggled to access credit through traditional banks, which favour large state-owned companies and require land or fixed assets as collateral.
中国的中小企业占国内生产总值(GDP)的60%左右，创造了75%的新增就业，但长期以来一直很难通过传统银行获得贷款，这些银行青睐大型国有企业，而且需要土地或固定资产作为抵押。
Small-loan companies contribute only a tiny portion of overall lending in China, with loans outstanding totalling Rmb908bn by the end of September, compared with Rmb95tn in commercial bank loans.
小额贷款公司仅占中国贷款总额的一小部分，截至9月底，小额贷款公司的未偿还贷款总额为9080亿元人民币，而商业银行贷款余额达到95万亿元人民币。
But such businesses and their clients are among the most sensitive to changing economic conditions. Growth has slowed this year as small companies suffer from weaker demand for their products and lenders seek to protect themselves from credit risk.
但这些小额贷款公司及其客户对经济形势的变化最为敏感。今年中国经济增速放缓，小企业产品需求下滑，而贷款公司希望保护自己避免信贷风险。
“Small-loan companies don’t have a lot of confidence in their clients right now,” said Xu Xiaoping, dean of the Center for Small Enterprise Financing Studies at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
上海财经大学小企业融资研究中心(Center for Small Enterprise Financing Studies)主任徐晓萍表示：“小额贷款公司现在对客户没有很大信心。”
Bad loans are also rising. The non-performing loan ratio for some small-loan companies in eastern China is more than 5 per cent, according to an unnamed central bank official quoted this week by Economic Information, a newspaper run by the official Xinhua news agency. That would be far above the official bad-loan rate of 1.08 per cent for commercial banks.
小额贷款公司的坏账也在增加。中国的《经济参考报》援引一位不愿具名的央行官员称，中国东部的一些小额贷款公司的坏账率超过5%。远超过商业银行1.08%的官方坏账率。
Small-loan companies are not classified as banks because they cannot take deposits. Instead they fund themselves through equity, bonds and interbank borrowing.
小额贷款公司没有被列为银行，因为它们不吸收存款。它们通过股票、债券和银行间借贷为自己融资。
This has exposed them to some of the riskier sectors, such as the slowing property market, in turn denting growth. “Their funding costs are high so they're bound to look for high-return projects,” said Prof Xu.
这让它们有可能投资于一些风险较高的行业，例如日益放缓的房地产市场，这些行业的情况反过来会影响其增长。徐晓萍表示：“它们的融资成本很高，因此它们肯定会寻找高收益项目。”
Reduced lending by small-loan providers could fuel the broader trend of slower investment by privately owned businesses, which are smaller on average than state-owned rivals but account for two-thirds of overall fixed-asset investment.
小额贷款机构贷款减少可能会令更为大范围的私营企业投资放缓雪上加霜，私营企业的平均规模不及国有竞争对手，但占固定资产投资总额的三分之二。
Market research group Euromonitor International estimates that small loans outstanding will grow at an annual 23 per cent between 2014 and 2018, much slower than the average annual rate of 81 per cent in 2009 to 2013.
市场研究集团欧睿信息咨询公司(Euromonitor International)估计，2014年至2018年，未偿还小额贷款将以每年23%的速度增加，远远低于2009年至2013年每年平均81%的增速。