谁在香港一掷千金？ Wealthy Chinese feast on HK’s luxury goods

2011年01月05日 07:18 AM

谁在香港一掷千金？

Wealthy Chinese feast on HK’s luxury goods

英国《金融时报》 拉胡尔•雅各布 香港报道

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As a dealer in Hong Kong for Lamborghini and an array of luxury yacht manufacturers, Leo Wong is in the right place at the right time. In 2010 an influx of wealthy buyers from mainland China pushed up sales in Hong Kong, where conspicuous consumption has long been a spectator sport, of everything from luxury cars and expensive apartments to fine art and fine wine.	作为兰博基尼(Lamborghini)和一批豪华游艇品牌在香港的经销商，黄锦培(Leo Wong)可谓占尽天时地利。在香港，“炫耀性消费”早已成为一种吸引眼球的活动。2010年，中国内陆的有钱人大举涌入香港，推高了香港奢侈品——从豪华汽车和高档公寓，到古玩艺术品和名酒——的销售额。
Mr Wong’s twin dealerships in Hong Kong and the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou last year sold 65 Lamborghinis priced between HK$3m (US$385,000) and HK$12m. This year will be even better, he predicts.	黄锦培在香港和广州的经销店去年共售出65辆价位在300万港元（合38.5万美元）至1200万港元之间的兰博基尼跑车。他预计，今年的销售情况会更好。
The impact on the fine wine market in the city has been even more dramatic. Last year Sotheby’s Hong Kong wine sales totalled US$52.5m, up from US$14.3m in 2009 and accounting for 59 per cent of the wine sold by the auction house worldwide, surpassing its sales in New York and London put together.	高档酒市场所受的影响则更为明显。去年苏富比(Sotheby’s)在香港的葡萄酒拍卖金额达到5250万美元，高于2009年的1430万美元，占该行全球葡萄酒拍卖金额的59%，超过纽约和伦敦两地之和。
On January 22, Andrew Lloyd Webber, the British composer and theatre director, will be selling part of his collection of Bordeaux and Burgundy wines, valued at between US$2.8m and US$4.1m through the auction house in Hong Kong.	1月22日，英国作曲家兼戏剧导演安德鲁•劳埃德•韦伯(Andrew Lloyd Webber)将通过苏富比在香港拍卖自己收藏的部分波尔多和勃艮第葡萄酒，价值介于280万美元到410万美元之间。
The flood of money from across the border is creating problems for Hong Kong, where the economy grew 6.8 per cent in the third quarter.	大量资金的流入正在给香港带来问题。去年第三季度，香港经济增长6.8%。
Donna Kwok, an economist with HSBC, predicts that asset prices will continue to be “doused in gasoline”.	汇丰(HSBC)经济学家郭浩庄(Donna Kwok)预计，香港资产价格仍将“淋满汽油”。
A third of buyers of luxury flats in the city in 2010 were wealthy mainland Chinese, many of whom left their flats unoccupied, contributing to a rental spiral at the top of the market.	2010年，香港豪华公寓三分之一的买家来自中国内陆。他们中许多人都将房子空置，这是香港高端地产市场租金节节攀升的原因之一。
The Hong Kong government faces a quandary: property prices have risen by about 50 per cent across the board since the end of 2008, pricing middle-class first-time buyers out of the market. In October the government began taking steps to cool the market, announcing that property purchases would no longer be taken into account in determining eligibility for permanent residency.	香港政府面临一个难题：自2008年末以来，楼价总体上涨了50%左右，中产阶层首次购房者正被逐渐挤出市场。去年10月份政府开始采取措施为市场降温，出台了以下规定：在审批永久居住资格时，将不再把购置房产纳入考虑。
The following month the government dramatically raised the stamp duty on short-term sales of properties held for less than 12 months.	次月，政府大幅调高了转售拥有时间不到12个月的房屋的交易印花税。
Academics in Hong Kong and mainland China say they are surprised by the volume of money crossing the border into Hong Kong, given that the mainland has capital controls. “There are huge amounts of money flowing into Hong Kong from China, but it’s not legal,” says Chen Guanghan, a professor of economics at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou.	香港和内陆学者均表示，考虑到内陆施行的资本管制，跨境流入香港的资金规模之大让人诧异。广州中山大学经济学教授陈广汉表示：“巨额资金正从内陆流入香港，但又不是非法流入。”
Individuals in China are not allowed to transfer more than US$50,000 annually out of the country, which suggests that mainland buyers of expensive apartments in Hong Kong are using offshore accounts to finance their purchases and alternative routes such as channelling money through units of mainland companies with operations in Hong Kong.	中国允许个人一年向境外汇出不超过5万美元的资金。这说明，内陆买家是通过境外账户在香港购买豪宅的，他们使用的是其它渠道，比如通过内陆公司设在香港的分公司。
A top private banker likens the transferring of money from the mainland to Hong Kong to the hawala trade in Dubai, whereby money bypasses the conventional banking system using trusted intermediaries.	一位顶级私人银行家把内陆到香港的资金转移现象，比作迪拜的“哈瓦拉”地下交易体系。在这一体系中，资金绕开常规的银行业体系，通过可信赖的中介进行流通。
But Hong Kong’s underground financial market is bigger today than that of Dubai’s, adds Thomas Chan, head of the China Business Centre at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.	但香港理工大学(Hong Kong Polytechnic University)中国商业中心主任陈文鸿认为，目前香港地下金融市场的规模比迪拜更大。
“It is capital flight, but it can go back in again,” says Prof Chan. “Mainland Chinese are using [Hong Kong’s capitalist system] for investment and diversification. Hong Kong is a Casablanca: all kinds of people from different countries are dealing with each other informally here.”	他表示：“这属于资本外逃，但这些资金还能再回去。内陆人正利用（香港的资本主义体系）进行投资，实现多元化。香港好比一个卡萨布兰卡：来自不同国家、各种各样的人在这里进行非正规的交易。”
The city’s residents have increased their holding of renminbi deposits by more than 200 per cent in the past year from a low base, but their mainland cousins’ appetite for assets in Hong Kong’s free economy continues unabated. An art industry insider estimates that a good portion of high-priced art and ceramics bought in the city by mainland Chinese – contributing to record sales for auction houses in 2010 – sits in empty flats.	在过去一年里，香港居民持有的人民币存款从一个较低的基数增长了两倍以上，而他们的内陆同胞对香港这个自由经济体资产的胃口丝毫不减。一位艺术品行业的内部人士估计，内陆人——他们是2010年各拍卖行刷新年度成交金额的一大因素——高价购买的古玩陶瓷中，有相当大一部分都被摆放在闲置的公寓里。