制造业出走倒逼日本经济转型

zhixun

itranslate于2012-04-16 22:23:03翻译
上世纪80年代的日本跃升为世界第二大经济体，意气风发，不想在90年代经历失去的20年，备显落寞。亚洲后来者又仿效日本，出口导向，令制造业出走日本？在产业空心化的日本，能否催生出创新型产业，实现经济转型呢？
April 15, 2012
2012年4月15日
Declining as a Manufacturer, Japan Weighs Reinvention By MARTIN FACKLER
制造业出走倒逼日本经济转型
AMAGASAKI, Japan — A few years ago, the densely built-up coastal region around this port was called Panel Bay because of its concentration of factories making the sophisticated flat-panel screens that were symbols of Japan’s manufacturing prowess. But now the area has become a grim symbol of its industrial decline.
几年前，在日本的Amagasaki港口附近建筑密集，曾被叫做是平板湾，因为大量生产精密平板电脑显示屏的工厂聚集在此，这也是日本制造业出类拔萃的标志。但是现在这一地区却成了日本工业衰落的标志，令人唏嘘。
In recent months, many of those plants have been closed or partially sold off, as the once seemingly invincible electronics industry has lost out to Chinese and South Korean challengers. Panasonic alone shut down two of its three factories here in March while Sharp, desperate to cover losses from its $10 billion flat-panel plant in nearby Sakai, accepted a bailout from a Taiwanese technology company — a stunning reversal in a nation that once prided itself on being Asia’s economic leader.
在最近几个月，很多这样的工厂都关闭或者部分出售了。日本曾经一度看起来无往而不胜的电子工业现在输给了韩国和中国的后来者。仅仅松下一家就在3月关闭了三家工厂中的两家，而夏普位于Sakai的平板显示屏工厂亏损100亿美金，为力挽狂澜，夏普接受了台湾一家科技企业的收购计划，对于一向以亚洲经济领袖自居的日本来说这显得不可思议。
The demise of Panel Bay is the latest sign of what many Japanese fear is the hollowing out of their heavily industrialized economy, which has been in a gradual but relentless decline since the bursting of its twin real estate and stock bubbles in the early 1990s. The decline is largely a result of growing competition from Asian rivals, an aging work force and merciless gains by the yen. But many officials and business leaders now fear that this trend has accelerated since last year’s nuclear accident in Fukushima, which has raised the prospect of higher energy prices and even power failures.
日本平板显示屏湾的衰落也是最近很多日本人所担心的高度工业化经济的产业空心化问题。日本1990年代早期以来的房地产和股市双重泡沫的破灭之后，这一空心化的趋势就逐渐的发展。在很大程度上，也是因为来自亚洲后来者的竞争越来越激烈，日本日益老龄化的人口和日元不断升值。但是很多官员和商界领袖现在都担心去年福岛核事故可能会加剧这一趋势，因为福岛核事故导致能源价格上涨甚至能源匮乏的情况。
“We already had a sense of crisis about the loss of manufacturing and manufacturing jobs,” said Tetsuya Tanaka, a director of manufacturing promotion at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, or METI. “Now we are afraid the concerns about electricity could give manufacturers the excuse they need to move offshore.”
日本METI（经济贸易工业部）的制造业促进会主任Tanaka说，“我们对于制造业和制造业机会的流失已经有危机感”，“现在我们担心的是对电力供应的不确定会不会成为制造业者将产业外移的一个借口。”
The increased price pressures have wounded many of Japan’s corporate giants. Last week, Sony — the Apple-like innovator of the 1980s — forecast a $6.4 billion loss amid reports it may cut 10,000 workers, a drastic step in a nation where layoffs are still seen as socially unacceptable. Even Japanese carmakers like Toyota, which last year handed back the title of world’s largest auto company to General Motors after the supply disruptions from the tsunami, fear that they are becoming vulnerable to game-changing competition in electric cars or just lower-cost producers in South Korea and elsewhere.
不断上升的价格压力也伤害了很多日本的集团巨头。上周，索尼公司这家在1980年代相当于今日苹果开风气之先的企业预计要有64亿美元的亏损，并要裁剪10000名员工，在日本社会对于裁员文化上是很难接受的，这一举措着实令人震惊。日本的汽车制造商如丰田也把世界第一的交椅还给了美国的GM，直接原因就是海啸引发的供应链断裂，同时它们还十分担心在新型的电力车生产领域或者南韩和其它地区的经济型车领域，日本会显得不堪一击。
The reversals have gripped Japan with a sense of national angst over its future, though economists are divided over how much the nation will actually deindustrialize — and whether a shift away from factories is really such a bad thing. Most economists agree that Japan, which rose to economic superpower status in the 1980s by building compact sedans and color televisions, has outgrown the “Asian Miracle” template and needs a new economic strategy. What that approach should be, though, is the subject of intense and growing debate.
这些都令日本对未来充满了担忧，尽管经济学家在日本工业化的程度以及去工业化是好是坏的问题上还存在不同意见。大多数日本的经济学家都同意，日本在1980年代崛起为超级经济大国靠的是制造汽车和彩电，现在亚洲奇迹的时代已过，日本需要有新的经济战略。现在日本越来越激烈的争论的主题就是日本到底应该有怎样的新经济战略。
“It is time for Japan to find a new model for its economy,” said Masatomo Onishi, a professor of business at Kansai University. “We can follow the United States into a more postindustrial economy, or we can follow Germany into high-end manufacturing, but we shouldn’t be trying to compete with China in mass production.”
日本必须要找到新的经济发展模式。Kansai大学的商业教授Masatomo这样说，“我们可以学习美国进入后工业化时代的经济，也可以学习德国专注高端制造业，但是我们不应该把重心放在和中国的大众产品生产的竞争上。”
These are questions that go to the core of the identity of a nation that has long prided itself on its tradition of craftsmanship known as “monozukuri,” or “making things.” The debate is being watched closely by other Asian nations, which have pursued the same strategy of industrial catch-up that Japan pioneered.
这些问题都直指日本国家认同的核心，日本长久以来以其制造业精细精密为骄傲。亚洲其它国家对日本的这一争论也是密切关注，这些国家都是模仿日本采取了工业赶超战略的。
One of the biggest questions, economists say, is whether Japan, and by extension Asia’s newer export-oriented economies, will learn how to foster innovation, nurturing the Apples, Googles, Facebooks and other technology start-ups that sustain growth in the United States.
经济学家说，最大的一个问题是日本还有亚洲新兴的出口导向型经济会不会去学习鼓励创新，培育更多像苹果、谷歌、脸谱和其它科技创业型企业，这些企业保证了美国的可持续发展。
Yukio Noguchi, an economist at Waseda University in Tokyo, has called last year’s disaster a chance for Japan to shift to a more supple, service-oriented economy like that in the United States. He says clinging to an outdated manufacturing model also hurt Japan by forcing it to cut wages and prices to compete with lower-cost Asian competitors, contributing to the crushing deflation that has burdened Japan’s domestic economy for nearly two decades. “Manufacturing is destroying the Japanese economy,” Mr. Noguchi said.
Yukio是位于东京的Waseda大学的经济学家，他说去年的灾难是日本转型的一个机会，转型到更加依靠服务业的经济体，像美国一样。他说现在继续抱守着过时的制造业模式会伤害日本，因为这样日本就不得不减工资和价格来和低成本的亚洲竞争者竞争，使日本通缩加剧，而日本的通缩拖累日本经济已经长达20年之久。Noguchi说，制造业是日本经济的破坏力量。
This deflation has hurt not just the giants but the legions of small factories bound to their “keiretsu” business groups, which ensured Japan’s top corporations a steady supply of high-quality parts, and were a major source of jobs in postwar Japan.
通缩不仅伤害到制造业巨头，也伤害到很多小厂，这些小厂为大集团提供高质量的零部件，也是战后日本就业机会的源泉。
One is Toko-Seiki, a plastic parts maker in the blue-collar city of Higashiosaka that used to make casings for Nintendo. When Nintendo started buying cheaper Chinese products about 10 years ago, Toko-Seiki cut prices by giving its 27 workers pay cuts, reducing their once comfortably middle-class wages of about $7,000 per month in the mid-1990s to less than half that. In 2009, it finally laid them off altogether and closed the factory.
其中一个是Toko。是在日本制造业基地城市Higasiosaka制造塑料零部件的一家工厂，过去为Nintendo提供包装。Nintendo 在10年前开始购买中国更加便宜的产品，Toko就不得不降价，27个工人的工资也降低了，过去他们在90年代的工资是每月7000美金，相当于中产收入，后来减半。在2009年，他们都被解雇了，工厂也关闭了。
Today, the company’s second-generation owner, Hiroshi Ogaki, 40, works alone in a quiet, one-room apartment, designing plastic parts on a computer for other makers in Japan and China. “We see lots of bankruptcies, but no new start-ups,” he said. “Japan’s manufacturing just seems to keep shrinking and shrinking.”
现在，公司第二代企业主Hiroshi，今年40岁，一个人在安静的只有一个房间的公寓里设计塑料零部件，客户是日本和中国的电脑制造商。他说，“我们看到了很多破产的故事，但是没有创业的故事，日本的制造业正在不断萎缩。”
It is a similarly bleak story for many of the small factories that were the loyal foot soldiers of Japan’s postwar export machine. According to METI, the number of manufacturing companies in Japan dropped by a third, to 540,000, in the 10 years up to 2006. The share of manufacturing in Japan’s overall economy has also shrunk to 18 percent in 2009 from about 35 percent in the 1970s, according to the Cabinet Office.
这在日本小企业界是个司空见惯的故事，显得凄凉，当时都是日本战后出口业的生力军。根据METI的数据，日本的制造业企业数量在1996年至2006年期间，下降到54万个，制造业在日本总体经济中的比重也在下降，2009年只有19%，而在1970年代占到35%。
By comparison, while the United States is still the world’s largest manufacturing country, such industry accounts for just 9 percent of its overall economy.
与此形成反差的是，美国仍然是全球第一制造业大国，但制造业占总体经济的比重只有9%。
Some economists, however, call the fears of hollowing out overblown. Takao Nakazawa, a professor of economics at Fukui Prefectural University, says that the decline in factory jobs is actually due to the introduction of new labor-saving technologies, pointing out that the value of all manufactured goods made in Japan has remained almost unchanged from the early 1990s.
但是一些经济学家说“空心化”的担忧太夸张。Takao，是日本Fukui区大学经济学教授，他说制造业工厂就业机会的减少是因为引进了新的节省劳力的技术，他指出日本制造业的价值和1990年代的情况差不多。
“Hollowing out is a myth,” Mr. Nakazawa said.
他说，空心化是个伪命题。
Instead, he and others say that what is happening is actually a shift away from televisions and other commodity products that can be churned out more cheaply by assembly lines elsewhere in Asia. He said the surviving Japanese companies are moving to more quality-sensitive products, like industrial robots and high-end bicycle gears, where Japan still enjoys a formidable lead.
他说，真正的情况是日本的制造业正在远离电视机和其它产品可以很便宜地由亚洲其他国家生产的产品，他说幸存下来的日本公司都转向了质量精良的产品，比如工业机器人，高端自行车等，日本在这些领域无人能敌。
This is the new strategy of Panasonic, which is trying to recover from its largest-ever loss last year by closing two of its three plasma display factories here in Amagasaki, a port city next to the much larger city of Osaka. Now, Panasonic says it will outsource a large chunk of its flat-panel production to lower-cost companies elsewhere in Asia, while focusing its own production lines on more profitable products like factory equipment and batteries for electric cars.
这也是松下的新战略，松下去年录得最大亏损，不得不关闭其在Amagasaki的两家工厂，在当地松下有三家工厂，Amagasaki是邻近大阪的一个港口城市。松下表示将要把其平板显示屏业务转移到成本更低的亚洲其它公司，现在就专注于利润更大的工厂设备和电动车的电池生产上来。
“One lesson we learned is we should not try to make every kind of product ourselves,” said Atushi Hinoki, a spokesman for Panasonic. “But there are still many things we make well.”
Atushi是松下的发言人，他说，我们得到的一个经验是我们不能什么产品都自己做，但是还是有很多东西是我们擅长做的。
Indeed, many economists and officials say that while a continued shrinking of its industrial base is inevitable, Japan would be foolish to relinquish manufacturing to the extent that the United States already has. A focus on exports has allowed this resource-poor nation to enjoy the huge trade surpluses, at least until last year, that pay for its imports of energy and food. They say that Japan’s surpluses have also given it the luxury of financing its own huge budget deficits.
确实，很多经济学家和官员都说尽管一些工业基地的萎缩是不可避免的，日本如果向美国那样完全放弃制造业还是愚蠢的做法。把重点放在出口上让这个资源贫瘠的国家可以享有大量的贸易盈余，至少到去年为止还是这样，保证了日本可以有钱进口能源和食品。他们说日本的盈余也使日本为其国内的预算赤字提供融资支持。
“Manufacturing is the foundation on which finance and other service industries stand,” said Keiichi Konaga, who formulated Japanese industrial policy in the mid-1980s as the top bureaucrat in METI’s precursor. “Even the United States is now waking up to this. That’s why it bailed out General Motors.”
制造业是金融和其它产业维系的基础，Keiiichi这样说，他当时是日本METI的官员，制定了日本1980年代中期的工业政策。现在即使是美国也认识到这一点，这也是美国政府为什么要拯救GM的原因了。