China’s economy

　　中国经济Slower boat from China

　　“中国号”减速

　　Oct 20th 2008 | GUANGZHOU

　　From Economist.com

　　Growth slows in China, as the global economic slump takes its toll

　　由于世界经济不景气的影响，中国经济增速放缓

　　Shutterstock

　　PERHAPS it should not be considered surprising. On Monday October 20th China’s National Bureau of Statistics announced that economic growth in the third quarter was 9% year-on-year, heady by American or European standards, but down from 10.1% in the previous three months (which itself was lower than the quarter before that), and the worst overall since early 2003. Consensus predictions had been for a more modest decline amid fading hope that China’s economy was fundamentally “decoupled” from the West. It is now becoming necessary, on a near daily basis, to re-evaluate just how much independence its economy enjoys.

　　也许这不值得大惊小怪。周一(10月20日)中国国家统计局发布第三季度经济数据：相对去年同期增长9%。以欧美标准来说，这已经非常令人满意了，但却比上一季度的10.1%低了不少(上一季度相对于更前的一个季度的经济增速已经降低了)。第三季度的经济增长率是中国自2003年年初以来的最低值。而在此前中国经济能够完全与西方“脱钩”的希望消失的氛围中，普遍预计中国经济增速会有一个更温和的下降。现在依照最近的每日数据来重新评估中国的经济享有多大的独立性显得非常有必要了。

　　It is growing harder to say that China is relatively immune from global financial and economic problems. This month alone, two big companies, Smart Union Group, a toymaker, and FerroChina, a steel producer, have gone into liquidation. For the rare company whose closing receives publicity, thousands, if not tens of thousands, shut without a sound. Early this year, southern China suffered from shortages of workers and shoe factories were discouraging orders of boots or any other product that required lots of work and materials. All of that has now reversed. There is a surplus of workers and an absence of orders, with no sign of any recovery.

　　现在越来越难说中国是否能相对地不受全球金融危机的影响。单是这个月，两个大型公司，玩具制造商合俊集团和钢铁制造商中国金属就已经进入破产清算程序。除了这些极少数有公开消息倒闭的公司外，还有成千上万的公司无声无息地消失了。今年早些时候，中国南方遭受了“劳动荒”，好多鞋厂无法完成靴子和其它需要众多劳动力和原料的订单。所有这些情况，现在已经完全颠倒过来了：这里拥有过剩的劳动力但却缺乏订单，而且没有一点复苏的迹象。

　　One of the most important events in the sales calendar for China is the historic Canton Trade Fair, which brings together a vast number of the country’s manufacturers with swarms of buyers from around the world. The first part of the autumn session ended on October 19th and there was little happy news to report. In a good year hotels will double rates and turn away guests. This time around, rates were high but rooms were abundant. The fair itself was far from empty but the crowds, by usual standards, were thin, with a notable absence of Americans and Europeans, and many complaints about a lack of orders. A year ago sellers demanded escalation clauses in their contracts because of rising commodity prices. This time a buyer from an Oman construction-materials company said that he was receiving a similar benefit from any price decline, and prices, he added, were falling much faster now than they had been rising then.

　　在中国贸易日历上最重大的事件之一就是久负盛名的广交会。在这里有着全国各地的制造商和来自世界各地的采购商。秋季广交会的第一部分已于10月19日结束，但是几乎没有什么好消息值得报道。在好的年份，广州的酒店会双倍收费甚至客满拒入。但这次，酒店费用依然很高但是却有大量空闲。虽然广交会上不至于门庭冷落，但是以通常标准来看，在欧美重要客户缺席的情况下，人流不算拥挤。许多参展商抱怨订单太少。而在一年前这些参展商还由于大宗商品价格的上升而要求提高在订货合同里加上价格自动调整条款。而今年，一位来自阿曼的建筑公司的客户表示他从价格下跌中获利不少，而且他还补充说，价格下跌的速度要比其之前上升的速度快得多。

　　China’s slowing cannot, however, be blamed on exports alone. There were warning signs all over the place, says Stephen Green, an economist at Standard Chartered, pointing to investment, consumption (despite a nominal, year-on-year rise in retail sales in September of 23%) and government spending. Sales of cars, clothing, air tickets and property have all fallen; production of steel has declined too. A bit, but only a bit, of this could be attributed to planned shut-downs at the time of the Olympics.

　　然而中国经济增速放缓不能仅将责任归咎于出口问题。渣打银行的Stephen Green表示，中国经济到处都出现警报信号，诸如投资、消费(尽管九月份名义零售额9月份增长23%)和政府开支。汽车、服装、机票和房地产的销售都在下降，钢铁生产量同样也在下降。这些仅有一小部分原因归咎于奥运的原因而关闭了一些工厂。

　　If there is any cause for optimism it is that some of the drag was the result of the government’s own efforts in the past year—a different era, in hindsight—to prevent overheating. In this, there is some hope. China’s financial position is not perfect, as non-performing loans are rising and some city banks are suspected of having problems, but there appears to be substantial room to relax fiscal and monetary policies. Inflation is declining. The big national banks appear to be in good condition, with abundant liquidity because of lending caps that have become increasingly stringent over the past two years. China’s government is in a strong financial position. Savings rates for the Chinese are high.

　　如果有什么值得乐观的话，那就是经济增长放缓部分的原因是由于中国政府自己去年(现在看来，那是一个完全不同时代)努力阻止经济过热的结果。基于此，现在仍有希望。由于一些不良贷款增加以及一些城市银行被怀疑存在问题，中国的金融状况不是非常完美，但是仍有足够的空间来放松财政和货币政策。大型国有银行看来状态非常好，由于在过去两年里贷款上限已经被非常严格地执行了，所以他们的流动性非常充足。中国政府的财政状况非常好。中国人民的储蓄率非常高。

　　As a result, there is abundant room for more aggressive fiscal policies, continuance—if not expansion—of credit, and domestic growth in consumption. Rumours of the potential government response are widespread. Export-targeted tax rebates that were repealed last year will be resumed. Also in the pipeline is the removal of transaction fees on sales of property. Bigger government spending on water and transport projects is also expected. All this should stimulate demand, if not immediately. Collectively, these actions should mitigate some of the impact of the global downturn, but mitigate is not the same as offset. If the global panic has done nothing else, it has been brilliant at revealing the collective dependency of even the fastest developing economy on the developed world’s prosperity.

　　因此，中国积极的财政政策的实施，即便不算扩张的也是持续的信贷投放和国内消费的增长仍有非常大的空间。最近，有关中国政府可能会有举措的传言四起。去年被废除的出口指标退税可能会被恢复。而且房地产交易契税也正在被考虑取消。政府还可能增大在用水和交通项目上的开支。这些都会直接或者间接地刺激需求。这些措施都将减缓世界经济下降带来的压力，但是缓和不等于抵消。不能说全球经济动荡啥作用也没有，至少它揭示了世界最快经济体和发达国家繁荣兴盛的共同关系。

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