After almost 70 years, Shanghai’s stock exchange is reopening to the world

近70年之后,上海证券交易所再度对世界开放

FROM the 1860s until the Japanese invasion of China in 1941, Shanghai’s bustling stock market listed not only domestic companies but also foreign firms, such as those now known as HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank, which operated out of the international concession特权. When trading resumed in 1992, only domestic firms could list. But many foreign ones have been eager to join them, and after a change in securities laws announced on August 6th, some may now have the chance.

自19世纪60年代至1941年日本侵华（英国人不熟悉中国近代历史？晕！），上海证券交易所均是一派繁忙景象。不光国内公司可以在此上市，外资公司，像现在的汇丰银行，渣打银行也可以在这里上市。这些公司都是通过国际特权来进行运作的。然而该交易所在1992年重新运作后，只有国内公司可以在此上市了，而外资公司亦急于加入。8月6日，官方公布对证券相关法规进行了修订，之后部分外资公司便可获得上市的机会。

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) hopes to be the first foreign firm to list in Shanghai, and may have the blessing of the regulators, according to Chinese press reports. But there is competition. HSBC and Standard Chartered are also reportedly angling to return, and other big banks have put out feelers.

纽约证券交易所有望成为第一家在上海上市的外资公司。据中国媒体报道，纽约证券交易所此番上市还有可能享受到中国监管机构的优惠政策。但是这其中还存在竞争。据报道，汇丰银行和渣打银行均千方百计地试图重返上海证券交易所，其他一些大银行也已对此进行了试探。

Had the opening come in 2007 when the Shanghai market was riding a wave of euphoria for much of the year, the motivation for a listing by any Western company would have been self-evident: money—and lots of it. Conditions, however, have nosedived. Corporate profits may have risen since but share prices are down by half, and there is little appetite left to provide capital to domestic companies.

2007年上海的证券市场可谓是全线飘红。倘若在那时对外资企业开放，那么，任何一家西方公司在此上市的动机将会不言自明——盈利，大规模的盈利。然而现在情况陡转急下。公司利润可能自此上浮，但是股票价格却下跌过半，为国内公司提供资金的能力已所剩无几。

The first foreign firms to list may be luckier, however, because they offer Chinese investors a rare opportunity to diversify into non-Chinese shares. With lower portfolio risk, local investors would also theoretically be able to pay more for Chinese companies, says William Goetzmann, a professor at Yale University who has published a rare paper on the pre-war ties between China’s financial markets and the rest of the world.

首批上市的外资公司也许会是个幸运儿，因为他们能为中国投资者带来一个经营非中国股票的难得机会。在投资组合风险较低的环境中，国内的投资者从理论上也会增加对中国公司的投资。耶鲁大学的威廉?高兹曼教授说道。高兹曼教授就二战前的中国金融市场同世界其他各国的联系这一生僻主题发表了一篇论文。

For the newcomers, there would be many potential benefits including, above all, in marketing themselves to the Chinese. For example, just as a listing by the NYSE would confer some status on Shanghai, so would it also encourage Chinese firms to use New York’s main exchange as their market of choice. (The big state-owned ones have largely ignored the Big Board since a listing in 2003 by China Life, an insurance firm, was met by a barrage of American lawsuits, partly because of poor disclosure.) The NYSE’s own members may also find it easier to list in China. As a fringe benefit, it may be able to sell China its trading technology. For other companies, the shares issued in China could be used as a form of currency to provide performance-linked pay to local employees, as well as to buy Chinese companies.

对于新加入的公司，这将会有诸多潜在的好处，尤其是在打开中国市场方面。例如，纽约证券交易所的上市会提升上海的地位，同样，这也会鼓励中国的公司选择纽约主要的交易所作为他们专用的市场。（2003年，中国人寿在美国上市。由于信息缺乏透明度——这是部分原因——该公司在美国不断受到起诉。此后，大型国有公司基本上把大盘忽略了。）纽约证券交易所自己的成员也将会感到在中国上市会较为容易一些。此外，向中国出售他们的贸易技巧也会成为一项额外的收益。对其它公司而言，他们在中国发行的股票可以当作货币形式既可以作为绩效工资支付给本地员工，也可以收购中国公司。

But there are pitfalls. Exchange rules may permit the Chinese authorities to attend the board meetings of listed companies, something that might not bother the NYSE, which does not face competition from Chinese exchanges in its home markets of Europe or America, but would probably horrify a global bank. More importantly, the financial barriers that surround China’s economy, such as its closed capital account, restrictions on currency trading, and prohibition on short-selling, mean that shares in China trade at different prices from those with identical rights listed on other overseas exchanges.

但这其中亦有隐患。证券法规可能会允许中国当局加入上市公司的董事会。对于纽约证券交易所，这无甚大碍。因为在欧洲或美国的本土市场上它无须面对来自中国证券交易所的竞争。但对于跨国银行来说，这可能会让其担惊受怕。更重要的是，环绕中国经济的金融壁垒，譬如封闭资本账户、禁止货币交易、禁止卖空，意味着在中国，股票交易的价格会异于在其他海外证券交易所上市的拥有同等权利的股票的价格。

That kind of trading inefficiency looks bad for China and would be an embarrassment for the NYSE, which prides itself on its ability to price shares cleanly. To solve it, the potential entrants are considering how to issue other types of shares known as depository receipts—but that is complicated by China’s trading and capital restrictions. To find a solution, they may have to help China to liberalise its financial markets even further. That would not only benefit the foreigners, but China too—which is probably the main reason it is courting them in the first place.

此种低效率的贸易对中国不利，而且还会令纽约证券交易所感到难堪，因为该所对其干净利落的给股票定价的能力颇为自豪。要解决这一问题，未来的新成员就要考虑如合发行被称为存托凭证的其他种类多股票。但是，中国对于贸易和资本的种种限制会使其变得十分繁琐。为了找到一个解决的办法，他们也许不得不帮助中国进一步放开其金融市场。此举不仅会使外商受益，也会使中国受益——也许这正是中国起初吸引外资公司的主要原因。

Aug 14th 2008 | HONG KONG

From The Economist print edition