2008/11/13
Financial Jitters Reach Emerging Markets
【By NICHOLAS KULISH／田思怡譯】
WARSAW — Emerging markets that seemed healthy, even thriving, barely a month ago are beginning to find themselves caught in the worldwide panic.
不到一個月前還看似健全甚至欣欣向榮的新興市場，現在開始深陷全球恐慌中。
From Europe’s former Communist bloc to South America, fear and disbelief mingled with frustration that a breakdown in the United States mortgage market — one that most investors and institutions in emerging markets had avoided — was beginning to lead once again to their punishment at the indiscriminate hands of the capital markets.
從歐洲的前共產集團到南美洲，恐懼和不敢相信情緒夾雜著挫折感，新興市場大多數投資人和機構本已避開的美國房貸市場崩盤，如今卻開始再次導致他們遭受資本市場不分青紅皂白的懲罰。
Poles were jolted last month by the sudden discovery that they were not immune to the financial crisis contagion rippling across the globe. The plunging stock market here and the drastic weakening of the Polish currency proved how wrong they were.
波蘭人上月突然發現，對波及全球的金融危機傳染病，他們沒有免疫力，這項發現令他們招架不住。華沙股市重挫和波蘭幣值劇貶，證明他們原來大錯特錯。
Developers across the country have halted building projects for thousands of apartments as banks have grown stingy with lending. The boomtown energy here has been replaced by nervous eyeing of the once powerful zloty, as it retreats in value against the dollar and the euro.
銀行抽緊銀根，全國房地產開發商手上成千上萬的公寓建案停擺。一度強勁的波蘭幣茲羅提對美元和歐元貶值，華沙新興都市活力，被緊盯茲羅提走勢的緊張心情取代。
Poland is still considered relatively healthy compared with Hungary and Ukraine , which have been among the hardest hit. Last month, the two reached tentative agreements with the International Monetary Fund for assistance aimed at preventing their financial systems from collapsing. Still, alarm about Hungary and Ukraine has infected Poland .
但比起受創最重的匈牙利和烏克蘭，波蘭仍相對健全。上月，匈牙利和烏克蘭與國際貨幣基金會達成暫時性協議，請求協助防止其金融體系崩盤。但匈牙利和烏克蘭的警訊已感染波蘭。
And the reverberations have extended much farther. In South Africa, the price of platinum, a major earner of foreign exchange, has plummeted, from more than $ 70 a gram in June to less than $28 now, contributing to a sharp depreciation in that country’s currency. Brazil ’s currency has fallen by more than 40 percent against the dollar since August. The Turkish lira has fallen by more than 30 percent against the dollar in recent weeks and almost 20 percent against the euro.
這些震動還迴盪到更遠的地方。在南非，賺取外匯的主要出口產品白金價格重挫，從6月一公克超過70美元，跌到目前低於28美元，導致南非幣值大貶。巴西幣8月以來已對美元貶值逾40%。土耳其里拉最近數周對美元貶值逾30%，對歐元貶值近20%。
Fuat Karatas, 41, a dental technician in Istanbul , buys some imported materials priced in euros but cannot pass on the rising price to customers, who pay in lira, he said. “Now with the euro going crazy, I have no idea how things are going to work out for me,” he said.
伊斯坦堡牙科技師、41歲的佛艾特．卡拉塔斯買了一些用歐元計價的進口原料，他說，他無法把匯差轉嫁到付里拉的客戶身上。他說：「現在歐元狂升，我不知道我的問題怎麼解決。」
Emerging-market countries are hardly a homogenous group, but they face similar challenges. The outflows of investor capital driving down their stock markets and pressuring their currencies have occurred just as the demand abroad for their products, whether commodities like oil or manufactured goods like automobiles, has begun to weaken.
新興市場國家不是同質性的集團，卻面臨類似的挑戰。投資資金外流造成他們股市下跌，並對他們的貨幣造成壓力時，也正是海外對他們的產品需求減弱之時，這些產品，不論是石油等大宗商品或汽車等製造業產品，都乏人問津。
In Brazil , leaders took pains to save wisely during the commodity boom, reform the country’s banking sector after a financial crisis in the late 1990s and diversify its trade partners. “This country has never been so prepared to face up to adversity as it is now, ” President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said last month. But a few days later the government empowered state-controlled banks to buy stakes in private financial institutions.
在巴西，國家領袖在商品市場大好時期聰明地力求節約儲蓄，在1990年代末期金融危機之後改革金融業，並分散貿易夥伴。巴西總統魯拉上月說：「這個國家從未像現在這樣準備好面對逆境。」但幾天後，政府授權國營銀行買下私人金融機構的股權。
Experts say there was a consensus in Poland that membership in the European Union would buffer it from the worst of the shocks. That consensus has begun to break down.
專家說，波蘭本來有共識，認為歐盟會員國資格能起緩衝作用，使波蘭避過最嚴重的衝擊。這項共識已開始瓦解。
The monthly mortgage payment for Jarek Wiewiorski’s apartment has gone up by a fifth, to 1,800 zloty, about $600. “It’s not catastrophic, but it’s painful,” Mr. Wiewiorski, 40, said. “One minute it’s America , the next it’s Hungary , and then suddenly, it’shere.”
賈瑞克．威維歐斯基的公寓月付貸款已提高五分之一，漲到1,800茲羅提，約600美元。40歲的威維歐斯基說：「這不是大災難，但很痛苦。一分鐘前是美國，下一分鐘是匈牙利，接著突然就到波蘭。」
【2008-11-11/聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS】
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