中国刺激政策拉动内需迅速增长，从而改变着中国迅猛经济增长的构成情况，在这种背景下，投资者正越来越多地从一些新的角度，来看待如何投资于这条“巨龙”的问题。
融入“中国增长故事”有可能前景莫测。中国的外汇市场基本上仍在政府控制之下；债券市场规模较小，且相关法律框架不完善；而股市的表现一直无法如实反映总体经济上的成功。
尽管今年上半年中国的国内生产总值(GDP)增长了11.3%，但在全球主要股市中，上证综指仍是今年表现第二差的指数，仅强于希腊。
难怪投资界要另辟蹊径，借助资源、外汇、债务、非中国股票等多种渠道，来建立“中国敞口”。
长期以来，投资大宗商品是投资中国的一种方式，其中铜是一种传统之选。
这种红色金属对于基础设施开发和提高能效都十分重要。近年来，铜（消耗量）已成为衡量中国工业产出的良好指针，这种状况看来会持续下去。
2000年，中国铜购买量占全球12%。根据麦格理(Macquarie)的研究，2009年这一比例已扩大到40%。巴克莱资本(BarCap)的凯文•诺里什(Kevin Norrish)表示，铅在中国同样供不应求。中国目前的铅购买量占全球的43.5%。而为了减轻各大城市的污染，中国近期采取了多项举措，关停了许多冶炼厂，对国内铅供应状况构成了压力。
中国汽车和电动自行车市场的蓬勃发展，应会使铅需求保持强劲。关键问题是，在无须大量进口的情况下，中国自身能够供应多少铅。
在与中国相关的大宗商品中，摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)选中的是煤炭。近年来，由于需求不断增长，中国已变成了煤炭净进口国。与此同时，相邻的煤炭生产国，如蒙古等，则在考虑开发新项目，以利用这股日益增强的趋势。
在农产品中，巴克莱资本青睐玉米。随着收入不断增长，中国人并未明显转向食用咖啡和巧克力——对肉类的兴趣倒是见长。而玉米既可供人食用，也可用于牲畜饲养，因此能够很好地反映饮食习惯的变化。
“中国多年来一直是玉米净出口国，如今开始在进口与出口之间摇摆。我们认为这只是开端，最终中国将转变成结构性的玉米进口国。”诺里什表示。
对“中国粉丝”投资者来说，大宗商品颇具吸引力，原因正如资深投资者吉姆•罗杰斯(Jim Rogers)所言：“（它们）是建立中国敞口的最佳途径，因为不用担心央行、公司治理、财务报表等各种名堂，而且中国购买的大宗商品肯定是最多的。”
相比之下，投资中国企业债券则可能带来重大挑战，因为违约后的偿还率几乎无从判断。
“在企业债券的债权人权利方面，中国在亚洲垫底。”安本资产管理公司(Aberdeen Asset Management)债务投资组合经理陈惜恩(Esther Chan)表示，“对债权人来说，破产过程无法证实，过往经历也无法给投资者多大安慰。而印尼等以往经历过多次危机的国家，对待债权人比较友善。”
与此同时，分析师表示，少数知名中国企业所发行的债券也开始显得昂贵。百货商店连锁经营商百盛(Parkson)的债券收益率从逾7%跌至4.5%左右。关联不那么直接的投资品种，例如巴西钢铁企业所发行的债券，随着巴西国内增长的腾飞，开始逐渐丧失其中国色彩。
陈惜恩如今希望通过房地产公司债券，建立中国敞口。
陈惜恩表示：“如果你愿意承受政策制定者抑制楼市举措所带来的波动性，那就吧眼光放长远，只投资一流中国房地产企业发行的债券。中国地产类债券的风险收益情况颇为诱人，提供了从中国中产阶层财富不断增长中获益的机会。”
在外汇市场，对于希望从中国增长中分一杯羹的投资者来说，澳元仍是最受青睐的币种。澳元走势与中国经济发展状况密切相关——澳大利亚为中国供应建筑业和基础设施所需的原材料，而不是像邻近的韩国和台湾一样，向中国供应制造出口商品所需的零部件。
对于股票投资者来说，也还是有一些方式可以通过投资从中国的增长中获益——即使是在西方市场上。不过，他们的目光瞄准了个别公司。
摩根士丹利的乔纳森•加纳(Jonathan Garner)近期对中国宏观经济形势的转变进行了研究，得出以下结论：许多大型跨国企业的股票，有望从中国工资增长及消费模式变化中获益。
它们大多是享誉国际、以中等收入消费者为目标的品牌，如耐克(Nike)、百胜餐饮集团(Yum! Brands)、联合利华(Unilever)、H&M和欧莱雅(L’Oréal)。这些企业的发展潜力空前——加纳预计，到2020年，“金砖四国”可支配收入在1万美元以上的家庭，将超过美国和欧元区之和，而此类家庭增加最多的将是中国。
投资界传递出的信息似乎是：直接通过股市投资于中国增长仍不太容易，但除此之外，还有很多方式可以投资于这条巨龙。
译者/杨远
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001034317
With a stimulus-fuelled boom in domestic demand altering the composition of China’s breakneck growth, investors are increasingly looking at fresh angles to buy the dragon.
Gaining exposure to China’s growth story can be a tricky prospect – China’s currency is still largely controlled by the state, its bond market is small and suffers from a weak legal structure, and Chinese equities have been a poor indicator of the country’s economic success.
The Shanghai Composite index remains the second-worst performing major equity market in the world this year, after Greece, despite gross domestic product growth steaming ahead at 11.3 per cent in the first half of 2010.
So it comes as little surprise that the investment community is looking at alternatives to gain China exposure from resources and currencies to debt and non-Chinese equities.
A long-time China play has been through commodities and within the commodity basket, copper has been the traditional choice.
The red metal is important both for infrastructure development and improving energy efficiency. In recent years it has been a decent proxy for Chinese industrial output, and that looks set to continue.
In 2000, China bought 12 per cent of the world’s copper. In 2009 that had risen to 40 per cent, according to research from Macquarie. Similarly, lead is a substance in short supply but in high demand in China, says Kevin Norrish at BarCap. China now buys 43.5 per cent of the world’s supply, and recent efforts to reduce pollution in major cities have forced a number of smelters to close, helping to put pressure on domestic supply.
China’s booming market for cars and electric bikes should guarantee strong demand, the key question is how much lead China can supply without the need for major imports.
Morgan Stanley’s China commodity pick is coal – China’s growing demand has seen it turn net importer in recent years, while neighbouring producer countries, such as Mongolia, are looking into new projects to exploit that rising trend.
In the agricultural sector BarCap favours corn. While China’s rising incomes haven’t seen its population significantly turn to coffee or chocolate – it has seen a rising appetite for meat. As corn is used both for human consumption and animal feed, it is a good proxy for changing dietary habits.
“China has for many years been a net exporter of corn, but it is now starting to flip between imports and exports. We believe these are the first steps on a journey that will eventually see China shift to being an importer of corn on a structural basis,” Mr Norrish says.
For China followers, commodities have a strong appeal as veteran investor Jim Rogers explains: “[They] are the best way to gain Chinese exposure, because one does not need to worry about central banks, corporate governance, financial statements, etc, and China must buy most commodities.”
By contrast, corporate debt in China can pose major challenges for investors with recovery rates following default almost impossible to gauge.
“When it comes to creditors’ rights for corporate bonds, China ranks the lowest in Asia,” says Esther Chan, debt portfolio manager at Aberdeen Asset Management. “The bankruptcy process for creditors is unproven, and past experience doesn’t give investors much comfort. Countries like Indonesia who have been through prior crises are more creditor-friendly”.
Meanwhile, the few, well-established Chinese companies that issue debt are starting to look expensive, say analysts. Parkson, the department store chain, has seen yields drop from over 7 per cent to about 4.5 per cent. And less direct plays, such as bonds issued by Brazilian steelmakers, are starting to lose their China bias as the Brazil’s domestic growth story takes off.
Instead, Ms Chan now looks for China exposure through bonds of property companies.
“If you are willing to weather the volatility from policymakers’ attempts to slow real estate growth, keep a longer-term horizon and invest only in the top quality issuers of the Chinese real estate sector; the risk return profile of Chinese property bonds is very attractive and provides exposure to the growing wealth of the middle class in China,” Ms Chan says.
In the currency markets, the Aussie dollar remains the most favoured China play (see chart). It is well plugged in to the development of China’s domestic economy – Australia provides the raw materials needed for construction and infrastructure, rather than the components used for exports, like nearby South Korea and Taiwan.
For equity investors there are still some ways of buying into domestic growth, even in western markets, but investors are looking at individual companies.
Recent research from Jonathan Garner of Morgan Stanley into macro- economic shifts in China points to a number of big multinational stocks that look set to benefit from rising wages and changing spending patterns in China.
Those are mainly globally established brands, such as Nike, Yum! Brands, Unilever, H&M and L’Oréal, that target middle-income consumers. The potential for these companies is unprecedented – Mr Garner projects that by 2020, there will be more households with a disposable income of over $10,000 in Bric countries than in the US and the eurozone combined, with most of that growth coming from China.
The message from the investment community seems to be that, while direct exposure to Chinese growth through the stock market remains tricky, there are still plenty of ways to buy the dragon.
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