商业周刊:填补中国社会安全网的空白
提要:随着人口结构的恶化,未来中国的公共和私人养老金将不足以供养老人,世行称中国隐性养老金负债为年GDP的70%—140%。中国的社会安全网存在以下问题:全国社保基金缴费和管理都很好,但何时向谁支付养老金却是问题;企业年金应采取信托方式并给予税收减免待遇,不过各地区并非都有减税措施;一些省份虽进行试点以求覆盖在国家体系之外的农民,但享有养老金的农民数量正在下降。要填补空白,中国需要采取多方面措施,如延长退休年龄、解决企业年金的税收问题、开放投资限制、提高参与率等。中国正在与时间赛跑,其养老金体系的回旋时间已经所剩不多。今后几十年中,中国的人口状况会迅速恶化。独生子女政策使许多家庭呈现1-2-4结构,即孩子一人、父母二人和祖辈四人。中国的负担系数每代人就会翻一番,劳动年龄人口将在2010年触顶回落,2040年每两个人就要供养一名退休者,而2000年则是六人供养一人。按照目前的发展情况,未来公共养老金或私人养老金都将不足以供养中国的老人,而这还没有考虑国家养老体系没有覆盖的农村人口。世行认为,中国的隐性养老金债务为年GDP的70%—140%,因此如果当前中国每年的GDP为2.5万亿美元左右,那么隐性养老金债务即为1.5—3万亿美元。
养老体系转变,社会安全网出现空白
上世纪50、60年代,中国大部分城市居民在国企工作。他们工资不高,但可以提前退休,养老金为退休前工资的80%;养老金完全由国企支付,但由于当时人均寿命较短,因此国企负担并不大。到80年代,中国人均寿命延长,而国企在盈利的压力之下,为减员而纷纷让职工提前退休。由于国企的养老金负担大大增加,因此它们要求政府承担这项职责。
从80年代初起,国家开始接替国企承担职工的养老职责,并向企业收取费用。而后,一些地区开始向职工收取工资的1%—3%作为养老金缴款。但这些资金是进入了个人帐户还是被集中了起来?这方面情况混乱,而且各地区情况差异很大。中央政府意识到必须采取措施,于是在世行的鼓励下建立了三支柱的养老金模式:第一支柱为国家养老基金和个人帐户,第二支柱为企业年金,第三支柱为补充性养老金。1997年国务院26号文件确立了当今体系的框架。
全国社保基金难题:何时向何人支付
三支柱体系确立后的三年中,一些省份养老体系岌岌可危,以致无法自我维持,于是中国在2000年秋季建立全国社保基金。其宣称的目标有多项,包括作为战略储备、帮助无力自我维持的省份、筹集资金以备人口状况恶化时之需等。关于全国社保基金的职责,有时是纯粹针对养老金,而有时则是对整个社保体系而言的。
全国社保基金已拨款用于海外投资,并接收国企在国际市场上IPO收入的10%。还有人提出,所有上市国企都应向其交付一定股份。总之,人们对全国社保基金的运作方式提出了很多设想。总体上讲,养老金体系获得更多资金总是好事,无论是通过直接方式还是间接方式,也无论是通过正确方式还是错误方式。但全国社保基金的一大问题在于,关于资金如何筹集以及如何管理的问题,我们有所了解,但对于将在何时向何人支付养老金的问题,我们却一无所知。
运用税收激励措施,发展企业年金
中国的企业年金应采取托管形式,而且必须指定一名帐户管理人、一名投资管理人和一名托管人。满足所有这些条件的企业年金应得到减税待遇。问题在于,中国并非所有地区都已决定为企业年金减税,各地规定并不相同。许多城市和企业表示,其企业年金可获得高达工资总额4%的减税额,另一些地区的比例更高,达5%—6%。但也有地区并没有减税安排,还有地区表示将通过谈判决定。
中国现有多少个企业年金计划是个难以回答的问题。目前共有37家机构获得参与企业年金管理的资格,其中5家为法人受托机构,11家为帐户管理人,15家为投资管理人和6家为托管人。通过这些机构难以获得需要的信息,不过可以肯定的是,截至2006年12月底,企业年金计划总数已超过100家,还有200多家正在筹建。
除企业年金之外,中国还有许多自愿的养老体系,包括上海式的强制缴费模式(Shanghai forced contributions model)、中国保险公司的团体养老金业务以及11个单独运作养老金体系的行业。这些补充性养老金本不应享受税收优惠,但它们实际上都享受了,因为它们将会转型成为企业年金以符合减税要求。但这种转变的速度还难以预计。
中国人寿要进入企业年金市场,应该双管齐下。既要争取企业年金业务的经营执照,同时也要注重现有业务。长远来看,企业年金将凭借税收优势而胜出。但中短期之内,很多与中国人寿或平安保险有业务关系的较小企业并不愿为建立企业年金而费力,它们只希望购买集成式的服务。
提高参与率,养老体系建设任重道远
在中国,有正式工作的城市居民享受国家福利,而农村居民和农民工则不享受。但即使在城市,中国大陆的养老金体系的参与率也不到50%,而中国香港是96%左右。大陆不可能接近香港的水平,但应该努力采取措施以提高参与率。
针对国家体系没有覆盖的农村居民,一些省份进行了试点,农民可以在专门的银行帐户中存钱,只要60岁之前不动这些钱,就可以获得较高的利率。总体上看,对农民而言,现在所做的就是鼓励他们为退休而储蓄。有些情况下,失去土地的农民可以被纳入社会安全网,他们可以获得某种形式的养老金来代替土地。这方面也有试点,但实际上享有养老金的农民数量正在下降。
1998年以来,中国在发展养老金体系方面已完成了许多工作,许多人关注这一问题,但很少有人了解全局。中国仍有很多工作要做,包括延长退休年龄、提高法定养老体系的参与率、通过强制缴款来解决此问题、解决企业年金的税收待遇问题以及放松投资限制。对国民进行培训教育,使其认可养老金也是个大问题。此外,中国应该由单一机构负责养老金的监管,而不是由多部门共同监管。
英文原文:China's Tattered Social Safety Net
The one-child policy combined with a large aging population means pensions are in danger of falling short. What's the solution?
Time is running out for China's pension system. The one-child policy has created the 1-2-4 phenomenon within many of the country's households - one child, two parents and four grandparents. With the dependency ratio doubling by the generation, China's working-age population is expected to peak in 2010 and by 2040 there will be two workers for every one retiree, down from six to one in 2000. Based on current progress, there won't be enough money in public or private pensions to support the elderly - and that's discounting the rural population uncovered by the state system. Working with institutions such as the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Asian Development Bank, Stirling Finance chairman Stuart Leckie has run a number of projects looking at the holes, and potential plugs, in China's pension system. He told CHINA ECONOMIC REVIEW how the present state of affairs came about and where the road may lead from here.
How serious is China's pension problem?
It is a race against time because the demographics are going to deteriorate very seriously in the next couple of decades. China is not going to collapse this week or next week because of pensions, but action needs to be taken now as someone being born today may well be drawing a pension in 90 years' time. The World Bank says China's implicit pension debt is 70-140% of one year's GDP. If you take today's GDP at almost US$2.5 trillion, what you are talking about an implicit pension debit of US$1.5-3 trillion.
When the cradle-to-grave system first started breaking down, what was there to fill the gap?
In the 1950s and 1960s, most people - we're talking about urban population - were working for state-owned enterprises. They didn't get much money but could retire early on 80% of their previous salary. All these pensions were paid by the SOEs and it wasn't much of a burden because people didn't live as long as they do today. In the 1980s, life expectancy was increasing while the SOEs, under pressure to become profitable, wanted to downsize so they were making people retire early. The pension burden on the SOEs became so great they told the government that it should take responsibility.
What came out of this?
The state started to take overall responsibility from the SOEs in the early 1980s and 1990s and started to charge the employers. Then some places started charging the employees 1-3% of salaries but was that going into individual accounts or into the central pot? This was pretty messy stuff. It's amazingly difficult to understand what was going on across the entire country. There were huge regional differences. The central government realized it had to do something and, with World Bank encouragement, it turned to the three-pillar model (Pillar 1A - state old-age pension; Pillar 1B - state individual account pension; Pillar 2 - enterprise annuities; Pillar 3 - supplementary pensions that are non-qualified). Document 26 was issued by the State Council in 1997 and that really laid the framework for what we have today.
And the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) was brought in as a strategic reserve to cover the shortfalls in the local schemes?
Within three years of bringing in the three pillar system, China realized that some of the provinces were in such a bad way that they couldn't just fend for themselves, particularly the northeast. The NSSF was set up in autumn 2000 and various things were said: it was a strategic reserve; it was to help provinces that couldn't help themselves; it was to build up a pot of money for when the demographics really get serious in China. Sometimes they said it was purely for pensions, other times it was for social security in general, including unemployment, medical, maternity, etc.
The NSSF has allocated mandates for overseas investments, and it already gets 10% from international IPOs by SOEs. What do you make of talk about giving it stakes in all listed SOEs?
There have been lots of ideas put forward, but then there is the usual tension between the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MLSS), the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), and everyone else. Generally, we would argue that the more money that is channeled, directly or indirectly, rightly or wrongly, into pensions is a good thing. The big weakness with the NSSF is that we know something about the money going in, we know something about the money being managed but we know nothing about when and to whom the money will be paid out.
To what extent are enterprise annuities similar to the Western corporate model in which both employer and employee make contributions which aren't subject to tax?
Enterprise annuities must be established under trust and they must have an administrator, a fund manager and a custodian. If you do all these good things, you should get tax relief. The trouble is, not everywhere in the country has decided on the tax relief rules. A number of cities and employers have said that enterprise annuities can get tax relief of up to 4% of total payroll, irrespective of whether it is the whole company or only part of the company in the enterprise annuity. Other people have come back with even higher rates, 5-6%; others have said absolutely nothing; others have said we'll talk about it by negotiation.
How many enterprise annuities are in existence?
We don't know exactly how many there are right now - and the central government certainly doesn't know either. China has licensed five trustees, 11 administrators, 15 fund managers and six custodians for enterprise annuities. If you speak to these people they will only tell you what they want you to hear. I'm pretty confident there were more than 100 enterprise annuity plans in place by the end of December and 200 more in the pipeline. It's been talked about but whether it's been announced to employees, documented and money changed hands and invested is another matter.
Are enterprise annuities destined to become the dominant product?
Apart from enterprise annuities, there are a number of other voluntary pension systems in China. There is what I call the Shanghai forced contributions model ; the Chinese insurance companies that have written group pension insurance; and the so-called 11 designated industries that have had their own special pension plans for years. These types of additional pension money are not supposed to enjoy tax advantages but they do. The idea is that they will transfer to enterprise annuity format to qualify for tax relief and to keep the MLSS happy. How quickly this will develop, we really don't know.
What would China Life have to do to move into enterprise annuities?
If I were China Life, I'd want to play it both ways. I'd be pushing for an enterprise annuity license as well as looking closely at my existing portfolio of business where, unlike enterprise annuities, there are no maximum fees or charges. In the long run, enterprise annuities will win if they sort out the tax position. In the short to medium term, a lot of smaller employers have contracts with China Life or Ping An don't want to go to the lengths of having a trustee and a fund manager. They just want to buy a package.
What can be done to provide for the poorer people?
They get state benefits if they are in the urban sector and in the formal workforce. The rural and migrant populations are not covered. What we are talking about is the 550 million people with urban hukou (residence permit), which might be 350 million when you take out the school kids and the elderly. The compliance rate is less than 50%, even in urban China; in Hong Kong, it's something like 96%. China can't hope to come anywhere near that level, but it certainly has to make huge efforts to boost the compliance rate.
What can be done about people in the rural areas who aren't covered?
They are allowed two children! Well, actually experiments have been carried out in some provinces whereby if the farmer puts some money into a special bank account, he'll get a higher rate of interest as long as he promises not to touch it until he's 60. Almost nothing is the answer.
How do rural pension schemes work?
As far as we know, it is nothing more than encouraging people to save for retirement. In some cases, when the farmer has lost his land, he may be brought into the social security net. Instead of having land, he is entitled to some form of pension. We hear of experiments being carried out but the number of rural employees with pension money actually seems to be declining.
How do you see China's progress on pensions as a whole?
There is a whole range of things that need to be done: extending the retirement age; increasing compliance with the state system; sorting out this problem with forced contributions; resolving the tax situation for enterprise annuities; liberalizing investment restrictions. Training people and getting them used to pensions is a big issue and then there needs to be just one pension regulator in China, not the MLSS, CIRC and MOF. A lot has been done since 1998 and many people are aware of the issues but few understand the whole picture. We don't think there are more than 20 people in China who really know what's going on.
来源:商业周刊,2007.01.03
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