双语时事：中国崛起的奥秘？民进国退

2014-09-15 15:53:16来源：可可英语

　　Underlying the relatively poor performance of state industrial companies is low productivity.Most investment is financed with retained earnings – so private industrial businesses, with areturn on assets more than twice that of state companies, can expand more rapidly. This isreinforced by the increasingly commercial behaviour of mostly state-owned banks: in recentyears they have lent almost twice as much to private as to state companies.

　　国有工业企业相对疲弱表现的深层根源在于生产率低下。大多数投资资金来自留存利润，因此资产回报率是国企两倍多的私营工业企业能够更为迅速地扩张。大多数国有银行的行为日益商业化，让私企更加如鱼得水：在最近几年里，它们向私企发放的贷款几乎是发放给国企的两倍。

　　China’s industrial policy is perhaps exemplified best by the State-Owned Assets Supervision andAdministration Commission, created in 2003 to oversee the largest state-owned non-financialenterprises. Critics say it favours state companies in an attempt to create national championsthat are larger, more powerful and more profitable. But this has failed: the return on assets ofSasac’s companies has plummeted since 2007, and is now below half their cost of capital.

　　创建于2003年、监督各大国有非金融企业的中国国有资产监督管理委员会(SASAC)或许是中国工业政策的最佳体现。批评人士称，国资委青睐大型国企，力图创建更大、更强、更加盈利丰厚的国家冠军企业。但这种努力失败了：自2007年以来国资委监督企业的资产回报率大幅下降，现在还不到其资本成本的一半。

　　The disparity between state and private companies is evident even in the steel industry,identified by Sasac as one industry in which Beijing was to maintain relatively strong control.This seemed an easy task in the mid-2000s, when state companies produced half of all steeloutput and their efficiency matched that of private companies. But when the annual growth inoutput fell to an average of just 9 per cent after 2006, compared with its average pace of morethan 20 per cent earlier in the decade, state companies’ returns fell sharply. By 2012 theywere in the red, and their share of production had fallen below a third. In contrast, the returnon assets of private steel companies rose after 2006, reaching a peak of over 10 per cent in2011 before declining slightly. With private steel companies investing more than twice asmuch as their state counterparts, their rising output share will continue.

　　即便在被国资委确认为北京要保持相对强有力控制的钢铁行业，也体现出国企和私企之间的差距。在2005年，这似乎是一个轻松的任务：当时全国一半的钢铁由国企生产，它们的效率与私企相当。但是在2006年以后的几年里，年均产出增长率降至9%(该十年的头几年平均增长率超过20%)，国企回报率大幅下降。到2012年，它们出现了亏损，产量份额下降至三分之一以下。相比之下，私营钢铁企业的资产回报率在2006年之后出现上升，在2011年达到逾10%的峰值后略有下降。由于私营钢企的投资是国企的两倍，它们的产量份额仍会继续上升。

　　The exception to the rise of private business is in finance, telecoms and other high-techbusiness services, as well as in upstream oil and gas. In manufacturing, private companies nowaccount for seven times more investment than state ones. But in services the share of statecompanies’ investment exceeds that of private companies and has declined only very slightlyin recent years. Yet the productivity differential favours private service providers by a marginof two to one over state enterprises, suggesting a substantial misallocation of capital.

　　私营企业兴起的例外是在金融、电信、其他高科技商业服务行业，以及油气行业的上游领域。在制造业，私企现在的投资份额是国企的7倍。但在服务业，国企投资份额超过私企，近几年只是略有下降。然而，私营服务提供商的生产率比国企高出一倍，这表明资本配置严重不当。

　　The footprint of state companies is shrinking but, because they earn far less than their cost ofcapital, they remain a drag on growth. If China enacts economic reforms announced last year –particularly eliminating all but natural monopolies such as power distribution – and making themarket the decisive factor in the allocation of resources, private businesses will displace stateenterprises in services. That would allow China to sustain a relatively high rate of growth andthus to continue its role as a leading driver of global growth. Those who make policies andpredictions based on a fundamental misunderstanding of China’s ascent are likely to missout.

　　中国国企的地盘正在缩小，但因为它们的利润远低于资本成本，它们依然拖累了增长。如果中国实施去年宣布的经济改革(尤其是打破除电网等自然垄断业务以外的一切垄断)，让市场成为资源配置的决定性因素，私企将取代国企在服务业的角色。这将让中国保持相对高速的经济增长，从而继续其作为全球增长主要驱动因素的角色。那些对中国崛起有着根本性误解并据此制定政策和作出预测的人很可能错失机遇。

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