Corporate bonds, like stocks, are an indispensable part of the capital market. A reasonable market structure requires the coordinated development of the bond market and the stock market, including corporate bonds, which is not only conducive to the reform in the financial field and the optimization of social credit, but also the market basis for enterprises to raise funds through multiple channels and at low cost.
At present, there are the following main problems in the development of China's corporate bond market:
① The scale of corporate bond issuance is small, which can't meet the investment and financing needs, and the structure is unreasonable. At present, China's enterprises that issue and intend to issue corporate bonds are mainly distributed in basic industries with relatively monopolistic positions, such as transportation, electric power, coal, manufacturing, etc., and they mainly belong to super-large enterprises, covering a small range, and the scale of corporate bonds issuance is very small. It is a prominent problem that the bond market has few kinds of transactions, unreasonable maturity and can't meet the diversified needs of investors. Most of the bonds issued in China's bond market are ordinary bonds with fixed interest rate guarantee, while convertible bonds, unsecured bonds and floating rate notes appear late and have less circulation.
② There are few kinds of corporate bonds with a single structure. In the corporate bond market, there are only two kinds of market transactions at present: annual interest payment and maturity interest payment, which are monotonous compared with the stock market. The single variety of bonds not only can't meet the different needs of all kinds of investors, but also limits the attractiveness of the secondary market of corporate bonds to investors, and also makes the issuing enterprises have too many choices to design suitable issuing varieties according to the specific characteristics of capital demand.
③ The corporate bond issuance market has obvious regulatory characteristics. In the issuance process, the issuance of bonds is subject to substantive examination and approval, and it is difficult to use financial instruments other than those permitted by laws and regulations, thus the innovation of bond varieties is greatly limited. At the same time, the price of bonds, the behavior of securities institutions, the issue target and the issue area are also controlled.
④ corporate bonds have poor liquidity. Compared with the issuance market, the circulation market of corporate bonds in China is seriously lagging behind and lacks a unified and effective circulation market. The liquidity of the bond market refers to the ability to buy and sell bonds quickly without changing the price as much as possible. Liquidity is an important symbol to measure that maturity of a market. The liquidity of the bond market is directly related to the financing ability and financing cost of issuing bonds, and also to the vital interests of investors. Maintaining sufficient liquidity in the market will help to enhance market stability and enhance market participants' confidence in market stability. For a long time, the major obstacle to the development of China's bond market is the problem of insufficient liquidity and weak liquidity in market segmentation. Reason: Excessive control and strict examination and approval system have led to the small issuance scale of corporate bonds, which has directly affected the development of the corporate bond market. At the same time, with the increasing risk awareness and tolerance of investors, it is not conducive to investors to expand investment channels and avoid investment risks; There are defects in intermediary institutions. The issuance and circulation of corporate bonds cannot be separated from the participation of intermediaries. The independence, objectivity and impartiality of intermediaries themselves and the degree of investors' recognition of intermediaries will affect the issuance and circulation of corporate bonds. However, China's intermediaries were once restricted by the planned economy, and their development history in China was not long, and many of them were born out of government agencies, which led to their inextricably linked with the government in business content, interpersonal relationships and other aspects, which seriously affected their own independence and objectivity, making potential corporate bond investors discouraged.
5) Multi-head management, imperfect laws and regulations
The existing government bonds, financial bonds, corporate bonds and corporate bonds in China's bond market are supervised by four different regulatory agencies. The primary market of treasury bonds is managed by the Ministry of Finance, while the secondary market is partly managed by the CSRC (exchange part) and partly managed by the People's Bank of China (inter-bank market part). Policy financial bonds are issued in the interbank market and managed by the People's Bank of China. The National Development and Reform Commission is in charge of corporate bonds, while the Securities Regulatory Commission is in charge of corporate bonds. Different bonds are subject to different regulations in various aspects, such as review procedures, issuance procedures, issuance standards and scales, and information disclosure, which is not conducive to the rapid and coordinated development of the bond market. At present, the audit system of corporate bond issuance has a distinct administrative color. Due to strict issuance restrictions, complicated and slow administrative examination and approval system, and the requirements that major banks should provide credit guarantees and the interest rate of issuing bonds should not be higher than 4% of the bank deposit interest rate in the same period, the development of corporate bond market has been seriously hindered.
6) The amount of corporate bond financing is far less than the amount of equity financing. Under the condition that the overall development of China's bond market is insufficient, the issuance of corporate bonds only accounts for a small proportion of the total amount of bond issuance. In recent years, the circulation of national debt and financial debt in China has been increasing. The annual issuance of national debt has increased from 19.723 billion yuan in the early 199s to 299.6 billion yuan in 25, and the financial debt has also increased from less than 1 billion yuan at first to 585.2 billion yuan in 25. However, compared with the rapid growth of national debt and financial debt issuance, the development of corporate bonds is relatively slow. From 199 to 25, the issuance of corporate bonds changed from more than 1 billion to 65 billion, only increasing by more than 5 billion, and the development was extremely unstable during this period. Although China has issued a number of "corporate bonds" since 1998, these enterprises belong to government branches and their affiliated institutions, and they are guaranteed by financial funds, so these bonds are essentially central government agency bonds, but they account for more than 4% of the corporate bonds issued in China. Therefore, in essence, the total circulation of corporate bonds is relatively small.
compared with the national debt and stock market, the trading volume of China's corporate bond market is obviously lower in the secondary market. In 21, there were 15 corporate bonds in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets, with a total market value of about 3 billion yuan and a daily trading volume of only several hundred thousand yuan. Even when the bond market was good in 21, the turnover rate of corporate bonds was only .23, while that of the national debt market of the exchange was 2.1, and that of the A-share market (Shanghai Stock Exchange) was 192. It can be seen that investors' demand for corporate bonds investment is far less than other trading varieties in the market. No matter from the amount of funds raised in the primary market or the trading volume in the secondary market, it can be clearly seen that the development of China's securities market obviously has the characteristics of strong stock market, weak bond market, strong national debt and weak corporate debt. This is incompatible with China's rapidly developing socialist market economy, and it is also incompatible with China's growing corporate financing needs. The slow development of China's corporate bond market has become a very abnormal phenomenon.
7. Defects of the credit rating system in the corporate bond market. At present, China's credit rating has not played its due role due to many problems, mainly in the following aspects: credit rating agencies lack certain impartiality. In a mature market economy, all the credit rating agencies are independent credit rating agencies. However, in China, corporate bond credit rating agencies are mostly affiliated institutions of government departments or the People's Bank of China. Credit rating agencies lack authoritative rating technology. Compared with mature markets, China's credit rating agencies also have a certain gap in evaluation technology and experience, which leads to the less authoritative credit rating. (1) The rating market has not yet entered a virtuous circle due to the lack of rating agencies with high reputation. 2) The demand for bond rating is insufficient, and the status of credit rating is difficult to establish. 3) Poor external environment limits the development of credit rating.
8. China is in the period of economic transition, which has caused problems in the development of corporate bond market.
quota at present, China adopts the approval mode of quota management for the issuance of corporate bonds. In the administrative allocation of the issuance amount of corporate bonds, the amount of corporate bonds is often allocated to enterprises with difficulties and poor quality according to the principle of "helping the poor", rather than optimizing the allocation of funds.
interest rate control according to the provisions of China's securities law, the rate of return adopted by enterprises to issue bonds should not be higher than 4% of the bank deposit interest rate in the same period. Such pricing can not effectively reflect the risk situation, but also make it impossible for issuers and buyers of bonds to carry out effective risk management.
compulsory guarantee since the bond issuance is planned and distributed, the price is controlled, there is no sufficient information disclosure and credit rating, and it is issued to a large number of retail investors, it is natural to need bank guarantee, which makes the bond issuance not liberalized.
dealing with the breach of contract, the breach of contract of the issuing enterprises in China is usually not solved by the principle of market restraint, but for the purpose of maintaining social stability, through administrative intervention, the sellers are required to issue the products later. In this way, the liability for breach of contract of the issuing company is passed on to the underwriter, which makes the underwriter face great pressure. Therefore, some behaviors of the issuing enterprises cannot be well regulated.
9. Lack of good legal environment and tax policy
1) The current legal framework is not conducive to the development of the corporate bond market. Some laws and regulations directly related to the development of the corporate bond market are vague, conflicting or restricting the development of the market.
(2) Higher tax burden has affected investors' enthusiasm for investment, and funds and government bonds have become people's preferred long-term holding varieties due to interest tax exemption. Therefore, from the tax point of view, corporate bonds do not occupy an advantage in various financial products, but are at a relative disadvantage.
1. Incomplete infrastructure
(1) The registration and settlement system is not unified. The registration and settlement system of corporate bonds is divided into two parts: the issuance (including unlisted circulation) part is registered and settled by the China Government Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation, and the listed circulation part is in the Shenzhen and Shanghai branches of China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation.
(2) The transfer trading system is not perfect, and the stock exchange is the only legal place for corporate bonds trading in China. However, the order-driven matchmaking trading mechanism of the exchange is difficult to meet the needs of large-scale discontinuous transactions, which makes the corporate bonds trading of the exchange light and large funds unable to enter and exit.
The inherent characteristics of corporate bonds and the immaturity of the existing market
First of all, the inherent characteristics of corporate bonds and the excessive transaction costs of exchanges affect their listing and trading. Because issuers have great flexibility in financing by means of bonds, there are great differences in the issuance conditions of a single corporate bond, such as the issuance amount, term, coupon rate, credit rating, redemption and resale, guarantee method, and issue target, while the varieties of securities traded on exchanges generally have the requirements of design standardization. Therefore, as a whole, corporate bonds are not suitable for the listing mechanism of the exchange. Only a few varieties with market indication significance adopt the exchange trading method, while more varieties should be traded in the OTC market. Secondly, bonds have the characteristics of low risk and fixed income, and are less speculative. Corporate bond buyers generally hold long-term investment, which will also lead to the discontinuity of bond trading, making it a normal phenomenon in the corporate bond market that there is no market for value. On the other hand, bond investment has the function of cash management, and bond transactions usually show the characteristics of bulk wholesale transactions, so the matching transaction mechanism of the exchange is difficult to meet the bulk discontinuous transactions of corporate bonds.
Thirdly, from the existing corporate bond market management system, the issuance and circulation are divided into two systems (the issuance system is managed by the state planning department and the listing system of the exchange is managed by the China Securities Regulatory Commission). Due to the differences and difficulties in connection between the two systems, the issuance and listing of corporate bonds cannot form a coherent mechanism, which is also an important reason for the poor circulation of corporate bonds.
Lack of horizontal social credit system
After a long-term institutional evolution, China has formed a vertical social credit system (the so-called vertical social credit system, in short, is a credit system in which subordinates trust their superiors, local governments trust the central government, and individuals trust the collective). At present, China is implementing the socialist market economy system, and the social horizontal credit system (the so-called horizontal social credit system, simply speaking, the social credit system formed by the mutual trust between equal subjects) that is suitable for the market economy system has not yet been formed. Relying on this vertical credit system, state-owned banks can absorb a lot of social savings, and at the same time, these savings are converted into treasury bonds, bank loans, stock market funds, etc. because of this vertical credit based on national reputation, thus forming financial support for the state-owned economy and preventing the excessive decline of the proportion of the state-owned economy.
second, the external bottleneck of the development of China's corporate bond market
1. The government restricts the corporate bond market too much
First, the government controls the total amount and structure of corporate bonds. In countries with developed market economy, issuing bonds is a common means of direct financing for enterprises. Generally, companies that meet the conditions for issuing bonds can apply for issuing bonds, and there is no limit on the amount.
second, the government uses administrative methods to price corporate bonds, which makes the issue price of corporate bonds inflexible. The issue price of corporate bonds is closely related to its interest rate.
Third, the government implements a preferential policy of giving priority to the development of stocks and government bonds. There are two purposes for the government to develop the securities market: one is to optimize the allocation of resources, and the other is to implement the shareholding system reform of enterprises and promote the economic system reform. In the case that both cannot be taken into account, the latter is usually chosen. Therefore, the development of the stock market has received more support, and the function of corporate bonds to optimize resource allocation has been neglected.
2. Lack of authority bond rating agencies
One of the reasons for the large scale of corporate bonds in the mature securities market is that authoritative rating agencies rate various bonds, so that investors can identify their risks and benefits, so as to make choices, and it is also convenient for issuers and underwriters to sell. Although China's "Company Law" puts forward stricter conditions for the issuance of corporate bonds, there is still a certain gap from the internationally accepted bond issuance standards.
3. The guarantee mechanism is not perfect
The fundamental risk of corporate bond issuance lies in the uncertainty of corporate benefits. Therefore, bond guarantee is a key factor affecting the issuance of corporate bonds. Effective guarantee can not only enable the smooth issuance of corporate bonds, but also reduce the redemption risk of corporate bonds. However, in fact, some guarantee companies do not have the guarantee qualification stipulated in the Guarantee Law or are unwilling to assume the guarantee responsibility, which makes the guarantee of corporate bonds often become a mere formality. Once corporate bonds cannot be paid at maturity, the government often takes administrative measures to ask underwriters to advance funds or use financial funds to solve it.
4. The information disclosure system is not well established
The Pilot Measures for the Issuance of Corporate Bonds stipulates that "the company and the credit rating agencies shall agree that during the effective existence of bonds, the credit rating agencies shall announce the follow-up rating report at least once a year", but there is no clear requirement on the content, format, time and authenticity of the disclosure. The continuous disclosure system of interim reports, annual reports and major events has not been established, and the operation and credit standing of securities operating institutions have not been established.
5. Lack of benchmark interest rate for pricing corporate bonds
From the perspective of the international securities market, the yield of government bonds is generally regarded as the benchmark interest rate for pricing corporate bonds, because government bonds have low risk, high security, good liquidity, strong liquidity and various maturities, and participants in the securities market generally take their interest rates as the benchmark of market interest rates. However, China's national debt market is underdeveloped and there is no benchmark interest rate in the whole securities market, which brings difficulties to the pricing of corporate bonds and makes it difficult for corporate bond interest rates to attract investors.