China’s banks are set to be the biggest losers in the sweeping bailouts of the country’s steel and coal industries.

中国的银行将成为对国内钢铁、煤炭行业全面纾困的最大牺牲品。

Local governments hoping to save their steel mills and coal miners have announced a series of restructuring plans, enlisting the banks to take the hit by improving the terms of the loans or swapping them for bonds or equity in the struggling groups.

希望挽救本地钢厂、煤矿的中国地方政府已经宣布了一系列重组计划，拟向这些苦苦挣扎的集团提供更优惠的贷款条件，或将贷款转换成债券或股权，让银行来承担后果。

The reliance on the banking system to shoulder the burden comes at an inopportune moment, with China’s banks already mired in bad debt — about Rmb15tn ($2.25tn), or 19 per cent of total commercial lending by some accounts.

现在依靠银行系统负起这一重担并不是时候，因为中国的银行早已深陷坏账泥潭——根据一些计算，坏账约为15万亿元人民币（合2.25万亿美元），即商业贷款总额的19%。

Profit growth at the banks has also fallen over the past two years and could deteriorate further as many of the country’s largest industrial players renege on loans for better state-brokered deals.

过去两年，银行的利润增速也有所下滑，而且可能进一步恶化，因为中国许多大型工业企业都出现了贷款违约，以期由政府出面斡旋达成条件更优的交易。

With the finances of local governments being weak, the China Banking Regulatory Commission has been ordering Chinese banks to ‘rescue’ these companies, and we believe that banks are likely to suffer from the government’s plans, said Chua Han Teng, a senior analyst at Fitch Group’s BMI Research.

惠誉(Fitch)旗下研究机构BMI Research的高级分析师Chua Han Teng表示：鉴于地方政府脆弱的财政状况，中国银监会一直在要求中国的银行‘救助’这些企业，而我们认为，政府的计划很可能让银行遭受巨大损失。

Not only do banks have to restructure the debt at the discretion of the government, these banks also purchase the bonds issued by these poor performing companies.

银行不仅不得不根据政府的意志重组债务，还得购买这些业绩不佳的公司发行的债券。

China’s State Council outlined in February that it would cut 500m tonnes of annual coal output over the next three to five years and 100m-150m tonnes of steel output over the next five years.

今年2月，中国国务院提出，在未来3至5年削减煤炭产能5亿吨，并在未来5年削减1亿至1.5亿吨的钢产能。

Progress, however, has been stunted.

然而，这一进程受到了阻碍。

Two of the country’s top industry regulators said recently that steel mills had hit just 47 per cent of the cutback target for the year by the end of July, while coal miners had achieved only 38 per cent.

中国两家最高工业监管机构最近表示，截至7月底，钢厂只实现了今年削减产能目标的47%，而煤矿减产只实现了38%。

The cutbacks to production have led to a series of government-brokered bailouts.

产能削减已经使得各地政府纷纷出面斡旋纾困计划。

In the biggest restructuring deal to surface since the global financial crisis, Bohai Steel is reported to be in talks with local government on restructuring $29bn in bank and trust loans.

渤海钢铁集团(Bohai Steel)据报道正在与当地政府就重组其290亿美元的银行和信托贷款进行商谈，这是自全球金融危机以来最大的一笔重组协议。

The municipal government of Tianjin will establish a fund to help work out the debt to 105 creditors, according to Caixin, the financial magazine.

据财经媒体财新网(Caixin)报道，天津市政府将设立一个基金，帮助解决涉及105家债权人的债务问题。

I suspect there will be a haircut on the debt and also a debt-for-equity swap, Christopher Lee, an analyst at S&P Global, said on the Bohai restructuring plan, although he noted that few details were yet available.

针对渤钢的债务重组计划，标普全球(S&P Global)分析师李国宜(Christopher Lee)说：我猜测可能会对债务进行减记，也会进行债转股。不过他指出，很多细节还不得而知。

There’s no way for the banks to not take a hit here.

在这一点上，银行不可能不受到冲击。

There’s no going back to the good old days when growth was 8-10 per cent.

再也回不到过去保持8%至10%利润增速的好日子了。

The contentious debt-for-equity programme announced earlier this year, in which banks will be asked to swap debt in exchange for equity in ailing companies, would help the banks remove bad debt from their loan books in the near term, Mr Lee noted.

李国宜表示，今年早些时候宣布的引发争议的债转股计划——银行将被要求把债权转换成境况不佳的公司的股权——将有助于银行在短期内消除账上的不良贷款。

But the plan would only prolong the recognition of toxic assets and eventually surface at banks when the companies in which they hold equity began to falter, he said.

但该计划只会延缓对有毒资产的确认，当银行持有股权的公司开始崩溃时，这些有毒资产最终将在银行浮出水面，他说。

Bohai Steel was just one example of how a local government was calling on its lenders to avoid the collapse of a state-owned industrial group.

渤钢只是地方政府要求银行防止国有工业集团倒闭的实例之一。

Earlier this month, the government of Shanxi, China’s most coal-dependent province, said it planned to extend the maturity on as much as Rmb400bn in loans to the region’s seven biggest coal groups.

本月早些时候，经济极其依赖煤炭的山西省的政府表示，计划展期该省七大煤炭集团高达4000亿元人民币的贷款。

Distress in the coal sector in Shanxi was set to take a heavy toll on the province’s economy.

山西煤炭行业的惨状将令该省经济遭受重创。

At the end of last year, Shanxi’s seven largest coal groups had Rmb1.18tn in debt, almost matching the province’s Rmb1.28tn gross domestic product in 2015, according to analysts at Everbright Securities.

光大证券(Everbright Securities)分析师表示，截至去年底，山西七家最大的煤炭集团已经负债1.18万亿元人民币，几乎与该省2015年1.28万亿元人民币的GDP相当。

Baosteel Group and Wuhan Iron & Steel Group, China second and sixth-largest steelmakers, announced in June that they were partnering on a restructuring plan.

今年6月，中国第二与第六大钢铁企业——宝钢集团(Baosteel Group)、武汉钢铁集团(Wuhan Iron & Steel Group)——宣布正在合作筹划重组计划。

The following month, three big coal groups including the world’s largest coal producer, Shenhua Group, set up a joint coal asset management company to help consolidate state-owned coal resources.

次月，包括世界最大煤炭企业神华集团(Shenhua Group)在内的三家中国大型煤炭集团成立了一家联合煤炭资产管理公司，以帮助整合国有煤炭资源。