CER February 2014

Q&A: Chinese universities lead their emerging world peers

FEBRUARY 2014 VOL. 25, NO. 2

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FEBRUARY 2014 VOL. 25, NO. 2

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FEBRUARY 2014 VOL. 25, NO. 2

THE HOUSE VIEW Published monthly since 1990 Publisher China Economic Review Publishing Editor Oliver Pearce Staff Writer Don Weinland Chinese Editor Liu Chen Associate Editor Brenda Yang Interns Miljan Glenny, Greg Isaacson, Rachel Zhao, Winkie Zhang Art Director Jason Wong Editor at Large Graham Earnshaw Associate Publisher Gareth Powell Director of Sales and Marketing Pierre Zolghardi Account Managers Ralph Wang, Jerry Cheng CHINA ECONOMIC REVIEW (ISSN: 1350-6390) is published by China Economic Review Publishing Enquiries cer@ChinaEconomicReview.com Subscriptions subscriptions@ChinaEconomicReview.com Addresses The Plaza Building, 102 Lee High Road London, SE13 5PT, England Room 1801, 18F Public Bank Centre 120 Des Voeux Road Central, Hong Kong Hong Kong printer 01 Printing Limited Suite M, 3/F, Tower 3, Kwun Tong Industrial Centre, 448 Kwun Tong Road, Kowloon CHINA ECONOMIC REVIEW welcomes letters. Please write to the editor at: letters@ChinaEconomicReview.com

6 GROWTH CONTRADICTIONS | China’s continued growth is in many ways a contradiction, but that’s how we like it

8 BUYERS BEWARE | Wealth management products can be dangerous for investors. Bad ones must be allowed to fail

MONTH IN REVIEW 10 NEWS BRIEF | The biggest China news stories in January

Q&A 12 THOUGHT LEADERS | Chinese universities dominate emerging world rivals

14 PILLOW TALK | 7 Days founder Chien Lee talks budget hotels 16 HOVERING BELOW | Companies are still waiting for the helicopter market to take off in China

COVER STORY 18 FEEDING CHINA | Not enough food at home

ECONOMICS & POLICY 22 YUAN VERSUS DOLLAR | There is little consensus on the direction of the yuan in 2014

24 GROWING PAINS | Lower GDP rates the new norm

BUSINESS 26 DELIVERING THE GOODS | Alibaba is on a long march to get consumer products into homes throughout rural China

28 ON TRACK | Chinese high-speed trains go global 30 RUNNING THE DOCKS | Chinese managers will probably be coming soon to a port near you

Advertising enquiries ads@ChinaEconomicReview.com Hong Kong: +852 3174 6136 Shanghai: +8621 5187 9633 ext 811

32 AUTOMATED LABOR | Foreign firms are expanding their efforts to play a role in Chinese robotics 34 COMING TO TERMS WITH CHANGE | Messaging apps like WeChat are here to stay. China Mobile needs to face this reality

MARKETS & FINANCE HKABC membership membership approved approved and and certifi certified ed HKABC

37 FALSE START | China is trying to reopen its IPO market, but it’s not going according to plan

THE HOUSE VIE W

Growth contradictions China’s continued growth is in many ways a contradiction, but that’s how we like it

Local debt: Roll over, play dead Local governments in China in 2014 will need to repay about 40% of the US$2.9 trillion they owe in debt, a huge sum. Does that mean an escalation of the debt crises at the local government level?

Probably not. As in the past, Beijing will likely allow many regional officials to rollover the debt. This, as Financial Times pointed out, is already happening.

Many analysts have argued that if economic growth can outpace the growth of credit, local governments should be able to service their debt appropriately. Junheng Li, head of research at JL Warren Capital, said in

06

China Economic Review | February 2014

a note to investors that the notion is flawed.

“The argument that China can grow out of the credit bubble is valid if and only if GDP growth increases the debt service capacity of the debtors,” she says. The central government, not local governments, is the main beneficiary of GDP growth through tax revenues. Higher growth will hardly help regional cadres, who bring in revenues primarily through land sales, Li says.

So while Beijing can certainly bail out troubled localities, China won’t be able to count on the economy to permanently grow its way out of a debt crisis in 2014.

8% this year. Some said leaders will try to lift growth from the expected 7.5% in 2013 to around 7.8%.

This year will not be “China 7.0,” as Chinese media suggested six months ago. The ever-expanding figure is truly a snub to reform but it should help mainland stock markets after disappointment in 2013.

The Shanghai Composite Index fell 6.75% and the Shenzhen Component Index fell almost 11% last year. More than 50% of the experts surveyed by The Economic Observer said the Shanghai index would end 2014 above 2,200 points with factors such as the reopening of IPOs on the mainland contributing to the rise. Other Chinese media

GDP and stocks: Edging upward It may not pay off regional debt, but GDP growth in 2014 is still front and center in determining how new leaders will run the country this decade.

Higher growth means more investment, more debt and less change; lower growth will show a willingness to push through much-needed – and painful – reforms at the cost of growth.

The consensus points to 7.5% growth or above this year, which is a letdown for anyone waiting on reform.

That also happens to be the GDP target senior leaders are expected to have set for 2014 at a meeting in December.

The Economic Observer, a leading Chinese business newspaper, polled 105 experts on 85 questions pertaining to China’s economy in 2014. Those experts said China will grow between 7.5-

Credit: myuibe

S

peculation abounds on how China’s leaders will engineer the economy, markets and social sphere in 2014. Every pundit has their take on the direction of the world’s second-biggest economy, but the country has a record for proving both naysayers and optimists wrong.

Atlantic writer James Fallows got it right when he said late last year that analysts and forecasters must start “recognizing that incompatible-seeming observations may all be accurate.”

CHINA ECONOMIC REVIEW has compiled a list of what we feel are the best predictions for 2014 while also assuring readers confidently that the world will continue to look at China with awe, antipathy, disgust and envy all at once this year.

WALKING CONTRADICTION: Power in the hands of a few could actually push reform forward

THE HOUSE VIE W

said that there was little hope of breaking 3,000. The index was at 2,044 on Monday morning, compared to a peak of 6,000 points in October 2007.

Housing prices and land reform: Nothing new While mainland exchanges weren’t welcoming to investors in 2013, the real estate market certainly was. After rapid year-on-year growth in prices continued for a 19th straight month in December, according to the Chinese Index Academy, industry watchers have questioned whether or not 2014 will be the year that the China housing bubble pops.

A major burst is unlikely, according to a panel of 10 top experts surveyed by Southern Weekly, a Guangzhou-based paper known for its investigative reports. But the market could see some dips around the country, especially in areas where supply has far outpaced demand.

“Ordos will fall. Other hot areas will still grow, grow, grow,” Shao Gensong, vice chairman of the Hangzhou City Management Committee, was quoted saying in the weekly. Ordos, a city in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has been labeled by many Western media as a “ghost town” for its vast number of real estate projects but few residents. In 2013, rapid overdevelopment in Wenzhou, a center for commerce in eastern China, led to the first drop in prices in a major city.

The Economic Observer predicted 10% price growth this year.

At the heart of China’s property market lies the method in which rural land is converted by local governments into urban space where developers can build. In 2013, media buzzed with prospects for opening a market for some forms of rural land, particularly after a big government meet in November.

But the experts that shared their thoughts with Southern Weekly were not optimistic about this. While a few predicted slow progress, others held tight to the conservative line.

“It can’t. The land is the state’s,” Bai Yunping, a public servant in Beijing, told the paper.

Pollution, censorship and central control: Getting thicker If the financial and economic outlook for 2014 is somber to negative, won’t things get better at least for the average Chinese citizen this year? Unfortunately, the outlook isn’t much better.

By many counts, the cloud of smoke that enveloped east and northeast China last year is here to stay, experts said.

“There will be progress on cleaning up the environment though the problems are so huge that not much will change

substantively in a year,” Bill Bishop, a China commentator, said last week in his newsletter “Sinocism.” Chinese-language publications by and large agreed, with some saying that it will take at least 10 years to truly clear up the problem.

Anyone wanting to complain about smog-induced coughs may find it more difficult this year to voice such opinions online than they did in 2013. Beijing has cracked down on the use of social media such as Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, and some fear that the increased level of control could extend to media such as WeChat, China’s most-used mobile messaging application.

“The stepped up control of the internet will continue [as] part of the broader, ongoing ideological tightening,” Bishop said in the newsletter.

Western media were thoroughly convinced that President Xi Jinping would continue to consolidate power throughout 2014. The power transition in March was followed by what those outside Beijing political circles take to be the centralizing of control in the hands of the new administration.

For Chinese people, that has several implications, the tightening on online speech being one of them. Another effect has been Xi’s apparent crackdown on corruption, which has mainly taken down the new leader’s political rivals.

Yet Xi’s power grab might actually bode well for Chinese people in 2014.

Without solid support, the party boss has little chance of pushing his reformminded agenda through a sea of vested interests and conservative caution. So, there is hope that the more power that is consolidated by a small group of people, the closer China will get toward reform and opening. Call it a contradiction if you like.

China Economic Review | February 2014

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THE HOUSE VIE W

Buyers beware China’s wealth management products have been plagued by an increasing number of problems. The house of cards appears ready to fall

I

t’s time to let China’s wealth management house of cards fall apart. A potential US$500 million default at China Credit Trust (CCT) is the place to start.

The 345 investors who bought CCT trust products through Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in 2011 aren’t sitting on buried treasure. Rather, the underlying assets for those products are a few dilapidated coalmines in Shanxi province. The price of coal has dropped 40% since a group of hungry investors poured their cash into the trusts, a form of wealth management product (WMP). The plant and equipment at the mine have also no doubt fallen in value.

CCT, a major trust firm, is now trying to liquidate the coal operation, Zhenfu Energy Group, in an attempt to pay back investors.

The product carried a 10% investment return. Zhenfu Energy is tied up in lawsuits and hasn’t been in operation since 2012.

Needless to say, without a bailout from above, there will be little for investors to collect on the due date, the last day of China’s lunar calendar, usually a time for celebration.

At press time, a bailout is still not out of the question. When a US$22.5 million wealth product sold by Huaxia Bank de-

NO GOLD HERE: Allowing CCT to default would force investors to see that some WMPs are worthless pits

faulted in December 2012, the guarantor of the product, Zhongfa Investment Guarantee, paid back 91 investors, giving the risk-laden industry, which by that time had an estimated US$1 trillion value, an implicit guarantee.

The industry has grown rapidly since then, to an estimated US$1.5 trillion at the end of June. The stakes have been raised with CCT’s US$500 million impending default.

This time around, it’s unlikely ICBC will get behind the toxic products. China’s big-

For rising salaries and fast-track to promotion, expats turn to China For the more pessimistic observers,

If the allure of rising salaries

A new survey by Hays, a UK-based

wasn’t enough, for many expats the

The economy expanded 7.7% last year,

recruitment consultancy, indicated

chance to work in China offers a fast-

which although strong in global terms

that 67% of employers on the main-

track for their career back home.

was the weakest pace since 1999 for

land are likely to give pay rises above

China is becoming a key market for a

the second year in a row.

6% this year. That compares to just

whole range of industries.

Yet despite the economic difficulties China is still popular with expats.

08

to jump up the career ladder.

China is starting to slow dangerously.

17% in Singapore and Hong Kong and 29% in Asia overall.

It’ll become even more attractive as

In the following 12 months, 71% of

salaries increase at a higher pace than

employers in China expect business

among Asian peers and more foreign

activity to increase and 43% plan to

professionals come to see it as a place

add staff.

China Economic Review | February 2014

Unsurprisingly, those fields that are vital to China’s future economic development hold the best promise, according to the survey.

An ever-expanding service sector, particularly in top-tier cities, is creat-

THE HOUSE VIE W

gest bank told the media that it has no plans to bail out the investors. If regulators such as People’s Bank of China and China Banking Regulatory Commission don’t lean on ICBC, an institution that could pay out the cash without flinching, that will signal the start of the end for an industry that should have never grown to the size it is today.

Policymakers at the top might even let that happen.“We believe that the reg-

ulators and government would probably allow the trust product default because … the government appears fairly determined to reform the financial system and instill proper risk pricing so there is a decent chance for this to happen,” Barclays Research said in a note.

Unlike the Huaxia case, investors in CCT don’t appear to be short on cash in the first place. Because the default is unlikely to put anyone out on the street, the

government will be more likely to allow a default, Junheng Li, head of research at JL Warren Capital, wrote to clients.

“Wealthy investors are less likely to protest so there would likely be less social impact,” Barclays said.

By doing so, the government would paint a very clear picture that many of the gold mines that investors thought they were sitting on are actually shabby coal pits.

A default at CCT could be just the beginning of a complete shake up of the industry, said Lu Ting, China economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

“We do believe the chance of trust product defaults is to rise significantly in 2014 as about a third of the outstanding [US$760 billion] trust loans will mature this year, while a more confident government with successful power consolidation in 2013 sees the need to break the so called ‘implicit guarantee’ on trust and bond products,” he said.

This is exactly what the central government needs to do. It would be doing everyone a favor by putting its foot down sooner rather than later on an industry that has channeled investors’ hard earned cash into bottomless pits.

ing demand for skilled accounting and

Chinese capital market but regulators

are prepared to accept compromises

financial personnel. Salaries at com-

currently can’t even offer the basics

on life, air quality and those sorts of

mercial banks are jumping by 10-15%

to achieve that, such as a functioning

things,” said Simon Lance, the region-

as lenders race to open new branches.

IPO system. Expats who don’t possess

al director for Hays in China.

Still, for all the money and op-

strong local language skills are less

As for the state of the Chinese

portunity, China has plenty to cause

attractive to employers than bilingual

economy – so vital for the job mar-

pause for thought. Slow financial re-

Chinese with international experience.

ket – it’s hardly in dangerous territory

forms, cultural issues and pollution

Ambitious professionals are un-

yet, Li-Gang Liu, Chief Economist for

can frustrate even the most eager of

likely to be put off by the above if it

Greater China at ANZ Bank, said at the

expats.

means getting ahead. Those who feel

launch of the Hays report in Shanghai.

Investment professionals dream

under-employed or under-paid in the

“GDP growth of even 6-7% is a very

of making a killing in the fast-growing

West will also keep coming. “They

good, sustainable number.”

China Economic Review | February 2014

09

NEWS ROUNDUP

MONTH IN REVIEW ECONOMICS China recorded fourth quarter GDP growth of 7.7% as investment and demand weakened in the last few months of 2013. The fourth quarter growth rate compared with a 7.6% forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll but eased from 7.8% in the previous three months. That leaves growth in the Chinese economy at 7.7% for all of 2013, unchanged from revised levels in 2012.

Analysts say growth could cool in 2014 as Beijing focuses on rebalancing the economy and other major reforms.

Chinese housing prices continued to soar in December but at a slower pace than in previous months, Reuters reported, citing National Bureau of Statistics data. Prices in the capital Beijing rose 16% in December from a year ago, easing slightly from November’s year-on-year increase of 16.3%, and the second month of slowing gains after a record jump in October. In Guangzhou and Shenzhen, gains eased to 20.1% and 19.9% respectively from 20.7% and 20.6% in November, their first slowdown this year. Nationwide new home prices rose 9.9% in December from a year ago, the same pace as November.

Credit: Michael Vito

FINANCE

China’s National Development and Reform Commission said it plans to curb the “disorderly expansion” of local debt this year. The remarks from the central planning agency came after the National Audit Office said local governments had run up total debt of US$2.95 trillion at the end of June.

Leaders are looking for steady growth in the economy as they push through one of the country’s most ambitious reform agendas, aiming to transform the economy into one driven by consumers rather than the traditional investment and exports.

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China Economic Review | February 2014

China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has launched an investigation into 13 underwriters and 44 institutions in its latest bid to curb highly valued initial public offerings, South China Morning Post reported.

The CSRC insisted that the newly reformed offering mechanism would safeguard the interests of retail investors when the listing market was reopened.

The new system required applicants to fully disclose information on earnings

SLOW DOWN: Economic growth in 2013 hit 7.7%, the joint slowest pace since 1999

and operations before the CSRC vetted the documents, while letting public investors decide their worth. Reforms haven’t been implemented yet and pricing power is still in the hands of the underwriters and institutional investors during the off-line subscription phase.

Data released by China’s central bank showed rapid growth in the country’s shadow banking sector in 2013, Financial Times reported. Funding from trust companies and other entities in the shadow sector rose to its highest level on record and accounted for 30% of the US$2.9 trillion (RMB17.3 trillion) in total credit issued last year, People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said, up from a 23% share of aggregate financing in 2012. “This shows that financial institutions’ off-balance sheet business is developing relatively fast and providing strong capital support to the economy,” said Sheng Songcheng, head of PBOC’s statistical department.

London-based investment manager Ashmore has become the first foreign group outside of Hong Kong to be allowed to directly invest in Chinese equities, Financial Times reported, cit-

NEWS ROUNDUP

ing the company. Permission has been granted as part of a recently agreed deal between London and Beijing giving British investors greater access to China’s US$3.4 trillion equity market and US$4.7 trillion bond market. Under a fixed investment quota for the UK of US$13.2 billion, Ashmore is expected to receive a small allocation, in the hundreds of millions of renminbi.

The number of Chinese using microblogs fell 9% in 2013 from 2012, according to a report by the government’s China Internet Network Information Center, The Wall Street Journal reported. The center attributed the drop in users – from 308.6 million in 2012 to 280.8 million in 2013 – to growing competition from social networks and messaging applications on smartphones, such as Tencent Holding’s (0700.HKG) WeChat. A spokesman for Sina Corp (SINA.NASDAQ), which operates Sina Weibo, China’s most popular microblogging platform, said these numbers didn’t match the positive trend Sina reported as part of its most recent earnings filing. In 2013, the government launched a crackdown on content in microblogs.

withdraw from the country and cut 1,100 jobs.

China’s auto market will likely maintain its momentum this year, fueled by a round of new stimulus measures and demand for cars in smaller cities, Reuters reported, citing industry executives and analysts. The new year should mark a second year of double-digit growth for China after sales expansion rates slumped in 2011 and 2012 to 2.45% and 4.33%, respectively. But in 2013, sales in China rose 13.9% to 21.98 million vehicles, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. In the previous 10 years, auto demand in China often surged 30 to 40% annually.

Credit: Gonzalo Baeza H

government is committed to sustainable agricultural development, safe food products and reduced pollution. Beijing is seeking to assuage public anger sparked by incidents such as chemical spills into supplies of drinking water and the sale of tainted baby formula.

Credit: Dai Luo

BUSINESS

POLITICS & SOCIETY Chinese authorities have pledged to improve the rural environment and ensure food safety and security in 2014, Bloomberg reported, citing a statement on the State Council’s website. The statement, part of a policy document issued every January by the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the State Council, says the

French cosmetics and skincare giant L’Oreal (OR.EPA) plans to pull its Garnier business from the Chinese market, Financial Times reported. The group said it would halt sales of its Garnier beauty and hair products in China. L’Oreal said it would focus on its two other mass market brands in China: Maybelline, which is mainly make-up and L’Oreal Paris, covering skincare, make-up and haircare.

The announcement comes just a week after US rival Revlon (REV.NYSE), a much smaller player in the China beauty products market, said it would

Apple’s (AAPL.NASDAQ) primary supplier Foxconn delivered about 1.4 million iPhone 5Ss to China Mobile (CHL.NYSE, 0941.HKG) for the state-run giant’s product launch, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing an unamed source. While the initial shipment volume doesn’t represent the total sales at China Mobile for January, the figure helps gauge early demand for iPhones from China Mobile, the world’s biggest carrier by subscribers with more than 760 million customers.

China Mobile began taking pre-orders for iPhones starting December 25.

China Economic Review | February 2014

11

Q & A : E D U C AT I O N

Thought leaders Chinese universities dominate emerging world rivals

E

ducation is the bedrock for a country’s growth. China has been investing big in its leading schools. Although it still lacks institutions that are able to compete at the very top globally, China comfortably dominates its emerging market peer group. Chinese universities were the standout performers of the inaugural ranking of tertiary institutions in developing economies published by Times Higher Education magazine.

Phil Baty, editor of Times Higher Education rankings, explains how Chinese universities have come this far, what it will take for them to break through into the leading pack and how they are struggling to overcome a block in creativity.

What were the notable attributes of the top Chinese universities in the ranking and why did Tsinghua and Peking come top?

You have to really perform well against all of our criteria. We have 13 separate performance indicators and they cover right across from teaching and research to knowledge transfer, to international outlook. But the one area where both Peking and Tsinghua were absolutely outstanding with the highest scores possible was for industry income, a sort of innovation indicator and third mission activities where universities are able to engage with businesses and companies and attract funding for their research through industries. That’s an incredible area of strength in China. research They have a very sound re performance performanc ce compared to other othe unithey versities; the ey do pretty well on research re where impact whe ere we look at how many times their research publications publicatio are cited by other otther scholars around aroun the world. Thee two Chinese universities unive come out well w on teaching. They Th are around the obviously very veery well regarded arou strong institutions. world as str rong teaching institu We find that that the Chinese universities unive are particularly particulaarly well regarded in teaching and a good goood teacher-to-student teacher-to-studen ratio, healthy proportion proportion of PhD to underu graduatee number, and also scored well in area. i the reputation area

Can you explain a bit more about how govm ernment support and 12 2

China Chi h na a Eco Economic conom co n ic R nom Re Rev Review e evviiew ew w | Fe Feb February ebrua rru uary ry 201 2 2014 0 014 4

funding has helped China to build up its universities this way?

I think China is the outstanding example of a clear policy direction with a very strong recognition in the 1990s that China needed to develop to move from manufacturing to an innovation and knowledge economy. So they undertook a very strong series of moves and I think the key ones were the two in the 90s, but in particular the 985 project. [Project 985 is a state-directed program aimed at building a select number of Chinese universities into world-class institutions.]

Now, obviously hard cash investment is essential here. You do need money to pay the scholarships, to pay the high salaries, to attract the talent in, to build the research infrastructure and fund the research activities so there is a very clear sense of China’s commitment of funding.

But also reforms to improve and increase internationalization and the encouragement of international exchange programs, in particular some of the scholarship schemes which really encouraged Chinese scholars to come back to China to continue their higher study and start or continue their professional careers back in China.

You say this new table highlights how many more Chinese universities are potentially poised to join Peking and Tsinghua in the Global Top 50 but the others are, at best, only ranked in

Q & A : E D U C AT I O N

the top 200-225 worldwide at the moment. Why is there such a big gap with the best in the world?

A: I think they’re less visible in the world rankings - Fudan is just outside the top 200; there’s a few like Renmin who are 226-250. So yes, you’re right, they’re all there or there abouts, just outside the global 200. But I think what this shows really that there is a large group of universities that are pretty close to that magical 200. The top 200 is roughly about 1% of the world’s higher educational institutions. What I am really trying to say is that given the trajectory of China; given that there’s continued economic growth; given that there’s continued commitment to investment in universities; given it’s not just Peking and Tsinghua who are get-

ting special funding and special support from the government, it would appear that the others are in a position to continue to improve, to continue to march up these tables.

How can they close the gap?

I think there’s quite clearly a sense that there are some remaining barriers.

Money is absolutely fundamental. But I think there are challenges around continued reform and persistence – reforms to be more adaptable to the global market and trying to give maybe a bit more autonomy, a bit more freedom to be more dynamic, more entrepreneurial in the face of the changing global market.

I think there are still challenges around – Peking, there’s a concern, perhaps, that there’s a lack of creativ-

ity; the entrance exams are so rigorous in checking fact that maybe they are not encouraging students to do more free thinking, more creative in terms of answering questions that haven’t been asked yet and preparing for an uncertain future job market.

And of course there is a slight pressure on just churning out research publications as part of the work place incentives and maybe there needs to be a focus more on producing higherquality research. There’s been an absolute explosion in the volume of research produced by China, which is very exciting but maybe the next step is to make sure that research is more carefully focused to make a real high impact with slightly less mediocre research and more focused on producing real quality.

China Economic Review | February 2014

13

Q&A : HOSPITALIT Y

Pillow talk 7 Days founder Chien Lee talks budget hotels in China and the rising mid-range market

A

decade ago, small business owners and a middle class travelers e faced a dilemma: Break the bank staying B in i a plush foreign hotel or o take a risk and check Chien Lee into a cheap local room i where you may or may not receive hot water, a television or basic provisions. Today, they have more choices than ever before and soaring demand is driving industry innovation.

At the heart of this development has been 7 Days, one of the largest budget hotel chains in China and now a cornerstone brand of a hospitality group backed by the likes of Carlyle Group and Sequoia Capital. Its co-founder Chien Lee remains enthused by the prospects the market offers and sees huge opportunity in the largely underserved mid-tier market.

In the second part of an interview with CHINA ECONOMIC REVIEW, Mr. Lee talks about chasing the middle class, ponders the difficulties currently being faced by the big luxury hotel groups and gives his thoughts on why marketplace services like Airbnb will take time to take off in China.

What was the opportunity you saw in the market when you launched 7 Days in 2004, and how has the market changed since then?

Ten years ago, China was just open-

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China Economic Review | February 2014

ing from manufacturing into domestic consumption. The market was growing.

My partner and I saw the opportunity in the consumer sector. I lived in the US for 20 years from the 1980s and I saw that most of the businesses were run by individuals, just mom and pop owned stores. But in the 1980s, the big brands took over the small retail chain store. For example, you used to go to a mom and pop store to buy stationary but in the 1980s Staples and Office Depot opened up and all of those mom and pop stores closed. They took over the whole market.

So in 2004, we saw a lot of no-star hotels or zhaodaisuo (hostels), individual owned or local government-owned.

They didn’t have brand names or proper management because they were individual. So we saw the market there, we saw the Chinese economy was opening up, a lot of small businesses were starting and a growing middle class that liked to travel. People across the social spectrum liked to travel. So the budget hotel was a huge, huge market and that’s why we launched 7 Days.

There are now several budget hotel brands in China. What are your thoughts on that?

I think it’s really healthy. We only have four or five brand names in this space in China, like 7 Days, Home Inns, Hanting, Jinjiang. But China still has a lot of market space. You see, at the beginning, we only had the first or second tier cities, but now we are going into

the third tier city, fourth tier city and even the small town – we are going there and that is a huge market.

Another thing is urbanization – that will play a significant role in budget hotels. Because you are transforming this small town or village into a small city so you need budget hotels. I think budget hotel market still has a lot of potential going forward.

7 Days has around 2,000 hotels in 230 cities. What is the geographical spread?

Many on the east coast. At the beginning, we focused on the first or second cities. But now we focus on third or fourth cities so we are more spread out now. We are moving out west slowly. We are spreading into small towns in the west. We are looking all over China, not just specific areas. If there is a market, we will go there. We are already in emerging centers like Wuhan and Chengdu, and probably, if there is the opportunity, we will open more.

What are the biggest challenges 7 Days has faced in establishing its position in the Chinese market?

The biggest challenge is the people.

China has its market already, it is there, but it is the people who manage these hotels. There are 2,000 7 Days hotels, which require almost 4,000-5,000 managers for the hotels due to shift changes. People are really important; it is one of the challenges. The other is how to

Q&A: HOSPITALIT Y

Earlier this year 7 Days was taken private and is launching some new mid-market hotel brands. Can you tell us more about your plans?

Our founders, Carlyle Group and Sequoia Capital formed a concession to take the 7 Days private and now Plateno Hotels Group is a hotel operator. Our brands include Lavande Hotel, James Joyce, Portofino, 7 Days, and the Zmax Hotel. We see the middle market is huge going forward, besides the budget hotel, and because China has a lot of medium and small business across the whole economy and we see a lot of business travelers need facilities. They travel a lot between city to city. Also, we see the room to create a couple of good brand names for the middle-level hotel in China, which is why we have got into this market.

By moving into the middle-market, are you not risking getting into competition with foreign groups that have a strong presence in the mid-upper segment?

The Chinese market is so big that there is room for a few mid-end hotels in the market, easy. We are localized, we understand the market and we already have a platform through 7 Days, and we have 70 million club members, which provides a lot of data. And also

COMFY BEDS: After establishing itself as one of the leading budget hotel chains in China, 7 Days is now targeting the underserved mid-range market

we don’t need a third-party registration system. We have 70 million members and our own reservation system and that gives us a lot of advantage.

We have the infrastructure to get into the middle market and we understand the market. I see a lot of foreign names, some have success, some they do not. Also, I haven’t seen any hotels dominating the middle market yet, no major hotel names and brands, unlike the budget hotel market. Even Holiday Inn, they are here, but they do not have a dominating brand name and that is very important. I’m not saying only us, but you need to have three or four dominating names in the market.

China has seen a massive build up of luxury hotels in recent years, especially foreign brands, but that market is currently struggling with low occupancy rates and falling room rates.

What is your view on all this?

I see a lot of foreign luxury groups coming to China and they are going

Credit: Chris

maintain the quality of the hotel and the brand name.

Other companies have the same thing. The management team at 7 Days is more personal, it is people first in the company corporate culture, that is number one. On the business side it is always customer first, how to be dedicated to the customer.

through some difficult times at this moment but my opinion is that this is a cycle and that the market will come back because the economy keeps growing and the middle class keeps growing and urbanization is coming so the market will come back, but how long, that depends.

Marketplace services in the US such as Airbnb that match rooms in private homes with travelers are challenging hotels.

Do you see something similar happening in China?

There is something similar starting up in China. I see a couple of services renting out condominiums and rooms as a private service. It has started but it is not fully there yet, it is way far away.

It is not near to becoming competition to hotels yet because of their size and their location. They are mostly in tourist areas; for example in the US it is mostly happening in places like Orlando, Florida, near Disneyland. So they do not pose competition in China yet.

China Economic Review | February 2014

15

Q&A : BELL HELICOPTER

Hovering below Companies are still waiting for the helicopter market to take off in China

C

rossing China, a vast and geographically challenging country, has never been an easy task for its people, officials or rescue workers. Listen to executives from the helicopter industry and they are convinced they have the answer. But while they are making some sales here, the Chinese market for whirlybirds remains small.

Laws, regulations and military restrictions have combined to limit growth in the country, concedes Chris Jaran, managing director of China for Texas-based Bell Helicopter. However, he believes the next 10 years will see “significant growth.�

In an interview with China Economic Review, Jaran explains how Bell Helicopter is preparing to serve the market by training Chinese helicopter pilots and maintenance crews, and how one day the company might assemble aircraft in China.

Helicopter ownership rates in China are just a fraction of what they are in the US, Europe and even other big emerging markets. What are your growth projections for the market in the next 10 years?

We see significant growth in China in the next 10 years, but it will depend on how fast the government opens up the airspace and how quickly pilots and mechanics can be trained.

What is your share of the China 16

China Economic Review | February 2014

helicopter market?

addressing them?

Bell Helicopter currently has approximately 20% of the commercial turbine helicopter market in China and we expect to see additional growth in the years to come.

In addition to adapting to the language and cultural differences, we are continually trying to streamline the sales process, and improve our spares supply, support, and training.

What are your goals, sales and otherwise, in China for the next decade?

Bell Helicopter is looking to provide better training and spares support for our customers as well as help build the general aviation infrastructure in China.

Which market segments do you see as the fastest growing in China and in what areas do you specialise?

Due to the shortage of pilots in China, we see the helicopter training market has huge potential, especially with the SLS [short light single aircraft]. We also see potential with the Bell 525 as the energy industry grows in China.

Can you tell us about your top selling models in China, and let us know about your product positioning in this market?

Currently the Bell 407 and Bell 429 are the top selling models in China.

They are mainly used for corporate and utility purposes.

What are the challenges that you face in selling to China from global peers and how are you

Like with many sectors in China, foreign companies have touted helicopters as a potentially huge market for years but progress has been slow. To what extent have your expectations been missed, and how are you planning for future growth considering your past experiences?

While we would always prefer things to happen faster, we believe we are on the right path in China and predict a large opportunity ahead. As mentioned before, a lot of this will fall on training for mechanics and pilots as well as government regulations, but we predict significant growth in the next 10 years and beyond.

Are you building or assembling more helicopters within China or are you mainly importing them?

What are the main difficulties faced when importing helicopters into China?

We have had success importing helicopters over the past few years and growing our international infrastructure and sales, but we do realize a localized approach is necessary for long term success in many international markets. Our strategy in emerging markets is to first build the training and infrastructure to

Q&A: BELL HELICOPTER

support the market with qualified pilots and maintainers and learn the market, then progress to completions and ultimately to final assembly.

What are the biggest differences you have noticed in buyer behaviour and requirements between China and, for example, the US or Brazil?

We are seeing customers that want multi-mission configurations that can be interchangeable, such as having corporate seating that can be removed to install a litter kit for rescue missions.

This is compared to operators in North America that need dedicated configurations for HEMS [helicopter emergency medical service] and corporate missions.

A lack of helipads, air traffic control infrastructure and severe restrictions on non-military and non-commercial are often cited as major obstacles to the development of the China helicopter market. What changes are you seeing in these areas?

The recent changes by the CAAC [Civil Aviation Administration of China] to loosen airspace restrictions by the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] have certainly improved the outlook of the general aviation industry.

China has a shortage of qualified air service personnel and maintenance crews to deal with helicopters. How can this be overcome?

We believe the best way to combat this issue is direct investment in the region. For example, Guangzhou Civil Aviation College is well on its way to becoming the first authorized Bell Helicopter Maintenance Training facil-

“Restrictions have limited the growth for helicopters in China compared to other countries like Brazil.” ity in China for the Bell 206L and Bell 407 product lines.

Guangzhou College’s instructors have made significant strides in process to become a Bell Helicopter certified training facility. The required classroom theory training and associated practical assessment were completed in July at the Bell Helicopter Training Academy (BTA) in Fort Worth, Texas. Under the supervision of BTA instructors, the college completed its first Bell 206 course in Anyang, China on August 23 and its first Bell 407 course ourse in Beijing China on September 6. The college is procuring its first Bell model 206 trainm ing aircraft and is expected peected to have it ready for training by early arlly Q3 2014.

Plans are also moving ng forward with Suilian Helicopter General en neral Aviation Co., Ltd. to open a Bell B Helicopter authorized flight training in ng school. Suilian began instructor pi pilot ilot training on September 16 at the Bell B Helicopter Training Academy in n Fort Worth, Texas. Both pilots successfully ucccessfully completed their Bell 206L instructor L flight f training. Additional tr training raining recently began for the Bell 407 model. m

that came into force on December 1 as having in the short to medium term?

Easing of restrictions will accelerate the flight plan approval process, which will hopefully result in more general aviation aircraft being produced.

How do the laws, regulations and military restrictions in China compare with other big emerging markets like Brazil, India and Russia?

The government restrictions for general aviation have limited the growth for helicopters in China compared to other countries such as Brazil and Russia which already have strong infrastructure in place for commercial helicopters. However we see China eventually catching up to these countries in the future.

How much have aviation av laws and regulations in n China hindered the helicopop pter market? Whatt impact do you see in the easing of new restrictions

China Ch C h hiiina na n aE Economic Eco Ec cco onom nom no omic ic R Re Rev Review evie ev iiew ew | Fe ew F Feb February eb eb brua rrua ua u arryy 201 2 20 2014 01 014

17 17

Feeding China BEIJING HAS RICE TO GO AROUND, BUT KEEPING EVERYONE IN CHINA FULL AT MEALTIMES IS MORE AND MORE OF A GLOBAL MATTER

COVER STORY: FEEDING CHINA

R

ice is serious business in China. The country ingested 146 million tons in 2013, making it by far the world’s largest consumer of the grain, a longstanding title.

What’s worrying the government isn’t how much rice China will eat this year. That figure is set to slowly decrease as the country urbanizes.

Rather, leaders are closely monitoring how much rice China imports, as well as the factors that could make China dependent on foreign grain in the future.

During the past four years, rice shipments to China have climbed some 530%. In 2013, China bought 3.4 million tons of rice from abroad, surpassing Nigeria for the first time as the world’s biggest importer, according to Index Mundi, an edible commodities tracker.

Beijing isn’t exactly celebrating the new title. In fact, this year agricultural policymakers will step up their guard on what they consider to be grain selfsufficiency. In early 2014, China’s State Council will issue an annual policy report known as “Document No. 1.” The statement, compiled by a special team from the country’s cabinet, will likely call for 100% self-sufficiency in edible grain, clarifying one of China’s longest-running policies.

A less specific definition for selfsufficiency was originally set at 95% in a long-term plan running 12 years through 2020. “[The government is] very, very worried about imports,” said Huang Guiheng, research director at BRIC Consultants in Beijing. “They have increased very rapidly in the past few years.”

The good earth For a country that produced more than 200 million tons of rice in 2013, 3.4 million tons in imports seems like a trivial sum. As agricultural policymakers watch import levels rise, they’re also tracking the country’s long-term capacity to supply its own grain – often in the face of mounting environmental challenges.

In 2010, the director of China’s Rural Development Institute, Chen Xiwen, first sounded the alarm on the scarcity of water in the northeast, the country’s grain basket. Of the increasing shortfall, he wrote, “It’s inevitable that the rate of self-sufficiency will decline.”

China feeds 22% of the world’s population with just 7% of the earth’s arable land and the second figure is declining steadily as croplands desertify.

This week, the State Forestry Administration said that 9% of China’s wetlands disappeared during the past 10 years.

Chen raised doubts again early last year when, as grain imports hit an alltime high, he announced that the country would not impose curbs on imports in 2013. It’s unclear at present if limits will be introduced this year but Document No. 1 could clarify how the government will act on this.

Pollution is another bombshell. In May, a government test in rice markets in the southern city of Guangzhou said that half of the tested grain was contaminated with high levels of the heavy metal cadmium, although the scope of those tests was later shown to be quite limited.

In the final days of 2013, the Ministry of Land and Resources said about 2.5% of China’s arable land was too

China Economic Review | February 2014

19

COVER STORY: FEEDING CHINA

contaminated by heavy metals to farm. It was a major admission from the government, which hadn’t made such data public since 1996. The ministry called the situation “grim.”

Legacy policy

Credit: Bonzo Walts

Anxiety over cadmium-laced rice or drying paddy fields isn’t misplaced.

Given its history with famine, and its long-term struggle to be self-sufficient, a deteriorating environment gives China good reason to worry.

Self-sufficiency has been a guiding light for the country dating back to the early years of New China. In the 1950s, the age-old tradition of household farming was broken apart by the central government and reorganized into collective farms that put hundreds of people working together in the fields.

Collective farming for the most part was disastrous. Tens of millions of people starved in the countryside due partly to poor productivity and low yields on farms in 1959 and 1960. Farmers continued to till the fields in that man-

20

ner until the late 1970s, when villages began spontaneously breaking away to resume household-based cultivation.

The opening up of China in the late 1970s and early 1980s was led by reformers striving to stabilize crop yields and keep bellies full.

“Grain self-sufficiency has been the most important challenge since the establishment of People’s Republic of China, and it was the main reason of starting the policy of reform and of opening doors,” said Chisa Ogura, a Tokyo-based senior consultant at agricultural-focused Promar Consulting, giving a sense of the weight put on agricultural policy in the country.

Ogura isn’t convinced of the potency of Document No. 1 this time around.

The last major central policy statement on self-sufficiency was issued in 2008 after world grain prices surged the year before. Reaffirming and even strengthening the definition of self-sufficiency this year with Document No. 1 wouldn’t be terribly surprising, she said.

Fu Zhenzhen, an analyst at Beijing

KEEP ’EM COMING: China’s growing food needs will create more business for farmers in agricultual exporting regions such as the United States

China Economic Review | February 2014

Shennong Kexin Agribusiness Consulting, agreed with that. She said for decades the government has strived to incrementally raise the rate of self-sufficiency with one goal in mind: “The first thing it wants to do is protect the edible grain. Everything else is less important.”

Bushels after bushels The central government isn’t just worried about rice. Imports of wheat, corn and soybeans have grown dramatically during the past few years. China is also the world’s largest consumer of wheat, putting down 126 million tons of noodles, fried gluten, as well as wheatbased animal feed, in 2013. Imports jumped by 187% last year alone.

Corn imports grew by 159% in 2013, after surging by 2,657% in 2009 and some 3,000% in 2005, according to Index Mundi.

Because the amount of rice, wheat and corn consumed in the country is so vast, a slight adjustment in China’s self-sufficiency rates can lead to upheavals in the amount it imports, Huang at BRIC said. That’s why even seemingly small changes in policy can have a great impact on the global market. “[Consumption] is so huge that if one type of these three main grains’ self-sufficiency rate declines a little, it means that China will become the largest importer immediately,” he said.

This happened with rice during the past three years, but not for the most obvious reasons.

At the end of 2012, as China closed in on the No. 1 rice-importer title, some analysts questioned if the country’s new hunger for imported grain would continue to grow and eventually

COVER STORY: FEEDING CHINA

push the price of rice on the international market sky high.

Experts have come out to disprove that notion. Huang Jikun, director at the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told China Economic Review that China’s overall demand for rice is falling as the country urbanizes. Urban dwellers consume about half the amount of rice their counterparts in the countryside eat. As more and more rural folk move to the cities they will slowly diversify their diet and China will eat fewer bowls of rice.

“It is not too difficult for China to achieve food grain self-sufficiency because per capita consumption for rice and wheat will fall in the coming decades,” Huang said.

Pricing is the dominant factor contributing to imported rice. Central planners set grain prices that, in terms of rice, have been higher than international prices since countries such as India and Pakistan flooded the market with the grain in 2012. Many Chinese traders have opted for the cheaper stuff.

Document No. 1: This rural policy has implications far beyond China’s farms The Central Committee of the Com-

pushed for reform to rural land mar-

munist Party of China and the State

kets and the transferability of some

Council issue Document No. 1 every

kinds of rural land, Document No. 1

year in late January or early Febru-

often emphasizes protecting farmers

ary. The policy statement tends to

and crop lands from the hazards of

focus on rural problems, particularly

commercialization. This year’s state-

what’s known in Chinese as “san

ment, issued on January 19, was very

nong.” These are three issues at the

much in line with expectations. It

heart of China’s agriculture and rural

focused on cleaning up the environ-

life, namely the crops, the land and

ment in the countryside. The docu-

the rural people. The document often

ment also stressed putting the need

errs on the side conservatism and is

to improve the national food security

slow to reflect reform. While many

system on the top of the reform list

market-minded policymakers have

for 2014 and the next few years.

Imports of key grains Imports (1,000 metric tons)

9,000 8,000 7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 0 2003

Global diet “What rate of self-sufficiency do we have to achieve before we are considered safe?” a reporter at Chinese weekly newspaper The Economic Observer asked in December.

By the accounts of many experts, the country has long been self-sufficient despite rising imports. Environmentalists, on the other hand, might say that major challenges such as pollution and water shortage stand between China and a full basket of rice in the future.

In a possible indication that leaders doubt China’s agricultural capacity at

2004

2005

2006

2007

Rice

2008

Wheat

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Corn Source: Index Mundi

home, they have pushed state firms to buy up farms and companies abroad to help boost supply.

In September, state-owned Xinjiang Construction and Production Corporation struck a deal with Ukraine for the rights to farm 3 million hectares of its land for 50 years.

The deal more than doubled China’s overseas agricultural projects in what analysts said was a new era for Chinese farming abroad.

Recently, China’s state grain trader

Cofco put in a US$250 million bid for a stake in Dutch grain trader Nidera with the hope of securing new access to resources.

Whether agricultural resources abroad, when brought under the control of government firms, will be added to China’s calculation on selfsufficiency is questionable. What does seem evident is that feeding China – with imports, buyouts or homegrown crops – is a global feat and will not be confined to the country’s borders.

China Economic Review | February 2014

21

ECONOMICS & POLICY: YUAN

WHAT’S IT WORTH?: China’s increasing current account surplus is putting huge pressure on the yuan to appreciate. But as usual there is no clear guidance from officials about where they want to take the currency, leading to continued speculation in 2014.

Yuan versus dollar There is little consensus on the possible direction for the renminbi this year, although the bulls probably have the edge

A

ll it takes is a quick phone call and a “yellow cow,” or an unauthorized money changer, will appear on a motorcycle in a matter of minutes, ready to unload the rolls of notes he’s stuffed in a waist pack. That’s how many people in China, locals and expats alike, buy foreign currency to bypass controls.

The changers were busy punching in numbers on their calculators in 2013. The value of the yuan hit the upward limit on the 1% trading band set by the central bank 41 times last year. It maxed out eight times in

22

China Economic Review | February 2014

December alone, demonstrating the high demand on the still-closely controlled currency.

People’s Bank of China (PBOC) allows the yuan to appreciate or depreciate daily by 1% in either direction of a marker it sets. The bank, not the market, sets the marker on a daily basis. During intraday trading on the last day of 2013, the yuan hit 6.0507 against the dollar, an all-time high.

It appreciated 2.9% against the dollar last year compared to a 1.01% gain in 2012.

Bold statements coming out of

the central bank late last year helped push up demand for the yuan. PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said on November 19 that the bank would “basically” end normal intervention in the currency market, meaning it will stop massive purchases of US treasury bonds that keep the value of the yuan down.

The bank’s Deputy Governor Yi Gang went a bit further last week, saying that China’s currency was close to equilibrium and would not require more intervention.

If that’s true, and China intends to

stop buying US treasuries on a regular basis, the value of the yuan should appreciate considerably this year and in the years to come as China’s trade surplus is set to rise too. The IMF says the country’s current accounts surplus will double between 2013 and 2017.

China’s increasing current accounts surplus puts pressure on the yuan to appreciate. Since China earned the reputation of the “world’s factory” in the late 1980s and early 1990s, policy makers have bought up dollar-denominated assets such as US treasury bonds, ramping up demand for the dollar and pushing down on the value of the yuan. A weaker currency makes Chinese exports more competitive.

Adding to this upward pressure on the yuan more recently is the central bank’s policy on tightening liquidity in the interbank market. Since June, PBOC has refrained several times from pumping cash into money markets, raising the cost of interbank lending. That has no doubt attracted those looking to arbitrage on interest rates, ANZ Bank said in a note to investors.

In Hong Kong, traders can get loans for offshore yuan at low interest rates, bring that money onshore and deposit it at higher interest rates, turning a risk-free profit on the hot money.

Under this mounting pressure, a halt to currency intervention should mean that growth in the value of the yuan this year. That is, if PBOC can stick to it. Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at London-based research firm Capital Economics, in a note to investors last week called into question China’s intention to stop buying US assets.

By Capital Economics’ count, China bought up about US$78 billion

CHANGING VALUE: The yuan has strenghtened against the dollar in recent years and will continue to do so, but how far it will go in 2014 is unclear

in foreign exchange in October, and then a similar amount in November.

The bank has said the purchases were necessary to counteract the hot money that has poured into the country this year.

Still, the recent moves indicate that PBOC is far from weaning itself off such buy-ups. Capital Economics projected slowing appreciation of the yuan over the next two years: 5.9 yuan to the dollar at the end of this year, or 2.5% appreciation, and then just 1.7% in 2015 at 5.8 yuan to the dollar.

Other projections have varied greatly. In the face of the US Federal Reserve tapering its bond buying program, which has released trillions of dollars of easy cash into emerging markets since 2008, PBOC will look to stabilize the yuan against the dollar, researchers at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a note in December.

The bank also pointed out that, while much money may have crossed the Hong Kong border into China this year, speculation over appreciation

of the currency onshore likely led to outflows into offshore accounts as well, something that would ease the central bank’s need to buy US treasuries.

ANZ expects “mild appreciation” in 2014.

Alex Fuste Mozo, chief economist at Andorra-based Andbank, said in an email that the yuan could appreciate by 3-3.5% annually for several years. Fuste Mozo looks to the market reforms for resource allocation as a signal that some state currency controls could be lifted. In November, the government pledged that the market would play a decisive role in the pricing of water, oil, power and transport.

“I interpret here, [market reforms] also in the FX arena,” he said in an email. The central bank seems to be on board with that. In an interview published in early December, PBOC deputy governor Yi Gang said many new reforms would extend to China’s currency. “Those who trust in the market,” he told a reporter, “will have great innovation.”

China Economic Review | February 2014

23

ECONOMICS & POLICY: 2013 GDP

Growing pains It increasingly looks like China’s economy is going to grow at a consistently lower rate and that could be a good thing

A

t 7.7% year-on-year GDP growth in 2013, it’s hard to tell just how much room leaders in Beijing had to wield their rebalancing tools. Growth, which slowed in the last quarter of the year, also to 7.7% from 7.8% in the third quarter, may have given them some elbow room, but not quite enough.

Annual expansion matched that of both 2012 and 1999. During the 12 years in between, China grew by an average of 10.2% per year. So leveling out at well below 8% per year is a significant downshift from what were clearly China’s boom – and likely bubble – years.

Also, it was only thanks to the government’s “targeted stimulus” in the third quarter that nudged GDP above the official 2013 goal of 7.5%. Without the quick stimulus money in July and August, which was reflected in higherthan-expected growth in the second half of the year, China may well have actually hit its target. That could have been a disaster.

Analysts have understood for months now that maintaining a rate of growth above this year’s target was crucial for China’s new administration, led by party boss Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. Gaining political consensus around strong economic growth in the hopes of pushing through painful reform in the future has been a cornerstone of Li and Xi’s first year in power.

That model has even been dubbed

24

China Economic Review | February 2014

“The strategy seems to be to maintain a decent pace of overall credit growth, but to use higher rates to push banks to seek out more productive private-sector borrowers ... which will help keep GDP relatively stable as credit growth slows.”

-Andrew Batson, GavKal Dragonomics “Likonomics” or the “Li Keqiang Put,” after its primary designer.

What’s coming into focus now is the balance between appeasement – that is, powering the economy with cheap credit, maintaining employment and social stability and keeping state businesses afloat – and rebalancing. The concept of rebalancing China has come to mean scaling back government investment, killing inefficient state firms and tightening their access to credit, all the while opening channels of credit to the real economy, namely small and medium enterprises.

This is a delicate balancing act because without strong economic growth, leaders will be wary of implementing reforms, many of which are

thought to be impediments to strong headline GDP. For example, industrial production in December slowed to 9.7% from 10% a year before; fixed-asset investment eased to 19.6% year-on-year from 19.9% during the first 11 months of the year. The slowing figures likely made the Xi and Li combo less confident about pushing reform in the final month of the year.

“What that points to is the pace for reform was not as quick as people previously expected,” said Zhang Fan, senior economist at UOB Kay Hian.

Economists at BBVA Research said in a note that the rate of growth in December was “strong enough to press ahead with reforms.” Glenn Levine, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics, noted that, “Beneath the headline there is some economic rebalancing taking place, but not much.”

Leaders were longwinded on talk of reform last year. In several official communiques issued after high-level policy meets toward the end of the year, Xi rose a reformist flag. He called for major market reforms in areas such as state-owned enterprises, resource allocation, and even the social sphere, hitting the one-child policy and the household registration system.

For now, much of that reformist speak can be disregarded as far-off ambition. In 2013, the true reformers were at People’s Bank of China (PBOC). Centralbanking.com in Lon-

ECONOMICS & POLICY: 2013 GDP

don didn’t give PBOC the “Central Bank of the Year” award for nothing.

The PBOC drew a line in the sand between GDP growth and rebalancing and asked who was coming with it.

Not everyone was on board at first.

When PBOC first tightened liquidity in the interbank market in late June, banks, analysts and investors yelped in pain. That attempt to slow credit growth in China’s shadow-banking sector was so strong that it prompted the central government to launch its targeted stimulus a month later.

The resulting higher, short-term interbank rates have boosted the cost of financing loans, squeezing banks’ margins. Therefore, they cannot continue lending to the same inefficient borrowers, such as well-connected firms that pay low interest rates. The banks must seek out higher-risk companies looking for longer-term loans. The hope is that the new target is small and medium firms, China’s true powerhouse for efficiency, innovation and employment.

“The strategy seems to be to maintain a decent pace of overall credit growth, but to use higher rates to push banks to seek out more productive private-sector borrowers,” Andrew Batson, senior China economist at GavKal Dragonomics, said in a response to the GDP figures. “The key is to move credit from less to more productive uses, which will help keep GDP growth relatively stable as credit growth slows.”

The conditions put in place by the central bank made for a rough second half of 2013. But striking a better balance between credit and GDP growth is still the No. 1 question for the new year. “The monetary policy will remain tight so it’s very likely they are thinking about how to balance this tight

Quarterly GDP Growth 10

Y-O-Y growth

8.9% 7.6%

8

7.9%

7.4%

7.7%

7.5%

7.8%

7.7%

8.1%

6 4 2

2011

0

2012

Q4

Q1

Q2

2013 Q3

Q4

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China

Urban Fixed-asset Investment Y-O-Y growth

Investment (in trillion yuan) 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

39.1

36.5 21.2%

20.6% 20.9%

20.6% 20.6 %

2.6

5.8

43.65 30

35.17 20.1% 20.1% 20.3% 20.2% 9.9% 19.6% 19.9% 19.

9.6% % 20 20.4% 26.26 20.1% 22 2 22.2 3 92 30 2 30.92 18.1 13.1 10

9.1 0

t h e v il c t ly ec eb ay ug ep un arc -Apr Oc n-No n-De Ju n-D an-F n-M n-A an-S Jann-M an-J Jann Ja Ja J Ja Ja J J Ja Ja Ja

2012

2013 Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China

Industrial Value Added Output Dec 2012-Dec 2013

Y-O-Y growth

14

12 10.3% 0.3% 10

9.9%

9.7%

0 % 10.2% 10.3% 10.4%

10% 9.7%

8.9% 9.3% 9.2% 8.9%

8 Dec Jan-Feb March April

May

June

2012

July

Aug

Sept

Oct

Nov

Dec

2013 Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China

monetary policy with steady economic growth,” Zhang Fan at UOB said.

More efficient lending that powers robust economic expansion, coupled with slower credit growth, will be the

story to follow in 2014. If PBOC can dig in its heels long enough, it could give other leaders the stable footing they need to kickstart bigger financial reforms.

China Economic Review | February 2014

25

B U S I N E S S : R U R A L LO G I S T I C S

WHERE THE CONSUMER IS: As rural wage growth continues to outpace that of urban areas and farmers demand access to a bigger range of consumer products, e-commerce companies are racing to push their delivery networks into China’s vast hinterland

Delivering the goods Alibaba is on a long march to get consumer products into homes throughout rural China

A

rriving in late January at their rural homes to celebrate Spring Festival, millions of Chinese who work in the cities will sit at dinner tables surrounded by TVs, fridges and all manner of modern conveniences. A decade ago this picture would have been very different.

Rising incomes have given farmers extra cash to pay for such goods, and it is the e-commerce revolution that has furnished many of these homes.

Between 2008 and early 2013 rural shoppers drove huge growth in the white goods market, supported by

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China Economic Review | February 2014

three subsidy programs from the central government. Although those growth rates have tailed off since the schemes came to an end, the continued increase in rural earnings is creating genuine demand for such goods.

The per capita net income of rural residents grew by 10.7% to RMB7,917 (US$1,304) in 2012, according to official data. According to a survey of Chinese consumer confidence published by Nielsen, a research firm, residents in the lowest-tier cities and rural areas are most willing to raise their spending.

Rural consumption growth was

expected to outpace that of urban areas in 2013, said a report by a department of the Ministry of Commerce published last May. More of this rural shopping is being done online. Farmers and their families make up almost 28% of all internet users in China, exceeding 165 million, and are the biggest source of new netizens. Recognizing this potential, large e-commerce firms are coming up with creative marketing strategies such as painting adverts on barnyard walls and promoting at rural wet markets.

Dispatching orders to farms can

B U S I N E S S : R U R A L LO G I S T I C S

confound the biggest of e-retailers, however. China’s vast, geographically challenging interior cannot easily be weaved together to create the efficiencies that are the hallmark of the most developed delivery networks.

Undeveloped infrastructure in rural areas, such as poor roads, insufficient information platforms, which increase logistical costs, and a lack of effective supervision and policy support contribute to the difficulties, said Hong Tao, a professor at Beijing Technology and Business University. State management of rural logistics is also to some extent “chaotic,” Hong noted.

That’s where Alibaba Group and Haier Electronics come in.

In December, Alibaba said it would invest US$364 million to form a joint

venture with the logistics unit of Haier, the largest white goods maker in the world. Commentators have said the tie-up is targeted specifically at putting more major appliances into modest living rooms in towns and villages. Competition in this segment of the market is set to rise.

360Buy.com is investing billions of yuan in developing its own logistics network. Alibaba on the other hand is working with partners across the supply chain, including delivery networks and manufacturers. In addition to the Haier deal it has pledged to spend US$16 billion by 2020 to develop logistics channels that penetrate into China’s hinterland.

The cost of the goods will remain important to the country’s rural people

but, when it comes to Chinese e-commerce, winning the market is all in the delivery.

“Most online retailers in China are offering similar products with competitively low prices, so they have to compete on service such as fast and reliable delivery and returns,” said Shu Zhou, assistant professor at San Jose University and an expert in logistics and supply chains.

They can either build their own networks or partner up, Shu wrote in a paper published last year.

If either or both options can make significant gains in delivering goods to rural markets, visitors returning home next year will likely see many more shiny products dotted around the farm.

China Economic Review | February 2014

27

Credit: sanfamedia.com

B U S I N E S S : T E C H N O LO G Y T R A N S F E R

CROSSING BORDERS: Big foreign firms came and signed lucrative high-speed rail deals in China as the country embarked on a rail boom but they are now going to come face to face in international markets from assertive Chinese competitors, backed by Beijing, to whom they passed key technologies

On track Chinese high-speed train builders are taking on multinationals in foreign markets

I

t seems like just yesterday that foreign companies from Japan, Germany and France crammed into Chinese boardrooms to bid on highspeed rail projects. Yet, today, it is Chinese state firms that are bidding on – and winning – similar projects abroad, such as the ones secured late last year in Central and Eastern Europe.

The development doesn’t just epitomize the Chinese government’s vigorous “going out” policy, which has pushed state-backed companies and private enterprises alike onto the international stage. The quick turnaround

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China Economic Review | February 2014

time demonstrates China’s vast exploits after more than 10 years of mandatory technology transfers for many foreign companies wishing to manufacture on the mainland.

At the time, companies scrambled to get into China, giving up decades worth of technological secrets for the promise of future access to the market. Now, the same companies are competing against their own technology and a rival that can greatly undercut prices for major international projects.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the global market for high-speed rail.

Siemens and ThyssenKrupp began building the Shanghai Maglev train in 2001. The line, which levitates on magnets and has always operated at a loss, was China’s first attempt to get its hands on high-speed rail technology.

Both companies were required to transfer to a Chinese partner some of the techniques used on the line if they were to secure the contract.

In 2004, Japan’s Kawasaki, Germany’s Bombardier Transportation and France’s Alstom bid on high-speed rail projects in China. The companies were required to partner with Chinese firms.

B U S I N E S S : T E C H N O LO G Y T R A N S F E R

“They can get more low-cost, competitive products and their financial pressure is alleviated ... For China, we get more shares in the international hightechnology products market, which will help to drive national industrial development.” - Li Hongchang, associate professor at the School of Economics and Management of Beijing Jiaotong University

and their financial pressure is alleviated,” said Li Hongchang, associate professor at the School of Economics and Management of Beijing Jiaotong University. “For China, we get more shares in the international high-technology products market, which will help to drive national industrial development.”

Of course, high-speed rail is just one of several industries where China learned the ropes quickly from foreign firms and turned that technology back on the world. When Chinese government officials go abroad, they advertise nuclear power, telecommunications and satellite technology. And always at rock bottom prices.

Foreign companies are sure to reflect deeply on the past decade, where they gave up their secrets for market access, only to get out-priced on the same products just a few years later.

ALL ABOARD: China is building the largest high-speed rail network in the world at home but the companies behind it harbor ambitions to lay tracks also in Europe and Asia

China Economic Review | February 2014

Credit: US Army Band

Fast forward a decade and China has laid more than 12,000 kilometers of rail using the technology it’s learned from these partners. Lucrative deals are now kept inside the country. In December, China’s two biggest train makers, CSR and China CNR, won bids for 258 bullet trains, which could be worth as much as US$7.3 billion.

The ownership of the rail technology China has acquired and re-engineered during the past decade is centralized squarely in the hands of China Railway Corporation, helping the country streamline projects at home and, more recently, abroad.

“In other countries it is difficult to export all the technologies since they are controlled by different companies,” Ji Jialun, a professor at the School of Traffic and Transportation at Beijing Jiaotong University, said. But in China, given the central nature of technology ownership, the state can act as a negotiator for projects such as these.

That’s exactly what Premier Li Keqiang did in November during a visit to Eastern Europe. China will partner with Serbia and Hungary to construct a high-speed rail line between the capitals of the two countries. During the same trip, Li also sold a Chinese partnership to construct rail lines in Romania.

China’s first international highspeed rail deal, a line in Saudi Arabia agreed to in 2009, is set to launch this year, state media has reported. Chinese rail engineers are at work in countries such as Thailand, Russia, Laos and the US. The deals are attractive to foreign countries because China not only builds them for a low price, it finances the projects too.

“They [European countries] can get more low-cost, competitive products

29

BUSINESS: SHIPPING

RIDING OUT THE STORM: Chinese port operators have survived the volatiity in global shipbuilding and container shipping by tapping growing trade with emerging markets. This year will see them set sail for more foreign shores

Running the docks Chinese managers will probably be coming soon to a port near you

A

mid the horror stories of failing Chinese shipyards and shipping lines, one area of maritime success has largely been overlooked. Port operators, which manage container ports and handle storage facilities, are doing well and are increasingly looking to expand overseas.

In a report issued in January, analysts at Barclays led by Jon Windham said they expect to see this trend continuing in 2014, driven partly by China’s broader “going out” policy and a slowdown in activity at Chinese ports.

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China Economic Review | February 2014

Should this pan out, then dominant players COSCO Pacific, a unit of a major Chinese shipping line, and China Merchants Holdings International could secure their transition from being large players with potential to sitting at the top table of global port operators.

Going global marks a significant shift from the original focus of these firms on domestic operations. As China opened up to the world and began exporting it needed the infrastructure to ship goods abroad. Vast facilities opened to connect manu-

facturing hubs on the east coast and across Guangdong province to the world.

Booming trade has provided brisk business at these ports. But China can no longer be counted on to generate huge cash flows for the firms. Global trade and manufacturing patterns are changing, meaning that international expansion is increasingly necessary if they are to maintain growth.

“China’s share of low-end manufactured goods trade is starting to, at worst, decline and, at best, stagnate after rapidly increasing for 15 years.

BUSINESS: SHIPPING

Low value, but bulky goods are the life blood of container shipping and China is losing market share of US imports in apparel, shoes and furniture,” noted the Barclays report. This means fewer vessels docking at Chinese ports.

Executives at the firms are therefore looking for where the action is, or is increasingly going to be. They have racked up millions of air miles flying to South East Asia and Africa. “ASEAN and African ports will be major targets because of booming economies and growing inter-Asian trade,” said Lawrence Li, senior transport analyst at UOB Kay Hian in Shanghai.

Europe potentially offers good deals given lower asset prices in the tough economic climate there at the moment, coupled with tentative signs of a recovery in the world’s largest trading bloc. However, as Li noted, Chinese firms are mostly limited to minor stakes.

COSCO Pacific was one of the first Chinese firms to set sail for foreign shores. Between 2003 and 2007, it snapped up minority stakes in ports in Belgium’s Antwerp, Egypt’s Suez and Singapore – all important regional shipping hubs. In 2009, it took control of half of Piraeus Port in Greece, and last year announced plans to invest around US$300 million to increase capacity.

China Merchants hasn’t been idle either, pumping in about US$2 billion into ports as far away as Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Djibouti, as well as investing in French-owned Terminal Link in early 2013. It is also in talks to build a port Tanzania.

“They are trying to transform into global port operators,” said Li. Yet despite these deals, Chinese port oper-

“ASEAN and African ports will be major targets because of booming economies and growing inter-Asian trade.”

-Lawrence Li, senior transport analyst at UOB Kay Hian ators are still not considered by experts to rank among the major hitters, such as APM Terminals and DP World.

Drewry, a London-based maritime consultancy, says they can close this gap through international deals.

In a report published in 2013, Drewry noted the rise of COSCO Pacific and China Merchants. “Port authorities looking to tender container terminal management concessions now have two Chinese players with overseas aspirations to assess.”

They certainly have the wind in their sales. Enviable ties to Chinese state banks and strong cash flow from domestic port operations have helped fuel their war chests. COSCO Pacific is currently packing an extra US$1.2 billion following an asset sale last year, and analysts say the company is likely to spend some of that on more terminal acquisitions in the coming years.

It could pick up some bargains.

“China’s move to invest internationally coincides with deep distress in the container shipping industry,” said the Barclays report, noting that container liners are being forced to sell off noncore assets such as ports to pump cash

into their main business.

Yet the challenges cannot be ignored. Making foreign deals a success, as their Chinese counterparts in other sectors can attest, will require a big effort from the terminal operators.

Li noted that one of the big obstacles to doing deals in the US and Europe is that Chinese port operators will have to negotiate with powerful unions, in which they have little experience. There are also foreign policy risks. China Merchants halted a port deal in Vietnam over territorial tensions with China in the South China Sea. Protectionism is generally less of an issue. A question mark remains over whether the US would allow any large port deal, although smaller ones have been accepted. India, which is in need of big, modern-operated port facilities, remains off limits. Most other nations are welcoming.

Some initial overseas deals bode well for future. COSCO Pacific’s Piraeus port operations, analysts say, is a success. The firm has turned the port, the first to the west of the Suez Canal, into a trans-shipment hub, securing deals with the likes of Hewlett Packard.

The key driver behind the firms’ current expansion plans – a slowing Chinese economy and less containerheavy trade from China – is not going to change. This course has been set.

Expect to see more Chinese managers at ports across much of the world.

What does remain to be seen is if COSCO Pacific and China Merchants will assume the power and reach of their biggest peers. Either way, they are keeping China’s maritime ambitions afloat.

China Economic Review | February 2014

31

B U S I N E S S : AUTO M AT I O N

HUMAN COST: Once ignored by factory owners because of their hefty price tags and loathed by workers fearful for their jobs, robots that can automate production processes are gaining acceptance in China. For now, foreign firms have a clear lead in the market

Automated labor Foreign firms are expanding their efforts to play a role in Chinese robotics

C

hina is aiming high on the industrial ladder. Getting there requires advanced equipment such as robots that is still firmly in the hands of foreign enterprises.

Industrial robots are used to do things like bolt panels on cars or assemble motherboards. China is the world’s second-largest robotics market, growing on average by 25% per year between 2005 and 2012, according to the International Federation of Robotics. The country is projected to become the biggest market for industrial robots by 2016.

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China Economic Review | February 2014

At the end of December, Kuka, a German firm, opened the doors to a new plant in Shanghai, seeking to capture expanding opportunities. Kuka announced that it had won big orders for robots from the booming domestic auto industry, which produced a record number of cars in 2013.

There are few Chinese companies to compete for that business. Experts say China’s robotics industry has not developed like its other industrial machinery sectors due to a lack of government support, insufficient demand and cultural prejudices.

However, as demand kicks up a gear on the back of further Chinese industrialization and as more small and medium firms decide to automate processes to reduce production costs, local companies may start to assemble.

The likes of Kuka, ABB of Switzerland, and Fanuc and Yaskawa Electric of Japan have flocked to China, attracted by an explosion in auto production. More than 15 million passenger cars were produced in 2013, a record for China. New car plants are opening all the time; Volkswagen and General Motors are investing a com-

B U S I N E S S : AUTO M AT I O N

Credit: Petitecornichon

bined US$36 billion in the country to raise capacity.

Robots are now also increasingly being sought in traditional sectors such as apparel.

The growth in the army of robots tracks rising wages. A shortage of workers in eastern China has squeezed margins and led to a double-digit jump in the cost of labor at factories. This is making automation all the more attractive. In 2011, Terry Gou, the boss of Foxconn, a Taiwanese elec-

tronics firm that makes phones and tablets for Apple, proclaimed that he wanted to introduce one million robots at his firm’s factories in China within three years – the kind that won’t protest working conditions or petition for higher wages.

And as more youngsters find work in shops and restaurants, previous cultural objections to robots as takers of once sought-after manufacturing jobs are waning, clearing the path for their adoption.

NIMBLE FINGERS: As the Chinese labor force shrinks and fewer youngsters seek work in factories, labor prices are going up rapidly, making robots more attractive even in industires such as textiles

When the time comes, it is foreign firms that are set to cash in on that windfall in demand, not Chinese ones.

“We [China] lack core robotics technology… domestic robotics companies are still not able to make reliable and competitive products as foreign robotics companies,” Yueh-Hsuan Weng, Research Associate at Peking University’s Law School, told China Economic Review.

Going on past precedents, when China starts to need certain equipment for its industrial development, it drafts policies to support domestic firms to invest and build their own capabilities.

This has not yet been the case for this industry, noted Yueh-Hsuan.

At the same time, foreign investment in the manufacture of the most commonly used industrial robots has been encouraged by the Ministry of Commerce. Once China feels that it has comfortably mastered a technology it starts to scale back incentives for overseas investors.

Industrial policymakers are slowly catching up. At the end of December, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published simple policy guidelines for the robotics industry.

This is the first step in encouraging domestic firms to plough cash into robotics. Further details and, crucially, incentives will need to follow at a later date.

The same trends that are attracting foreign investors into China’s robotics market are bound to stimulate the interest of their local counterparts.

Still, Kuka has little to worry about in the immediate future, and should have plenty of time to enjoy the benefits of its expansion here.

China Economic Review | February 2014

33

BUSINESS: MOBILE INTERNET

Coming to terms with change China Mobile has done very well out of the growth of the digital world in the past decade, but it will now have to make nice with internet firms that piggyback on its platform

OVER THE TOP: Hugely popular messaging apps such as WeChat and Weibo are hurting China Mobile’s revenues as users send fewer text messages and make fewer calls. The telecoms giant will have to find ways to work with and make money from such services as it won’t be able to block them

T

here’s a lot of name calling in China’s telecommunications industry. And it’s hard to blame mobile operators when they label messaging apps or social media services freeloaders.

Over-the-top (OTT) applications such as Tencent Holdings’ messenger WeChat and Sina Corp’s micro-blogger Sina Weibo are largely dependent on mobile data networks to reach customers. China Mobile and the country’s two other operators have spent the better part of a decade and tens

34

China Economic Review | February 2014

of billions of dollars putting those networks in place, only see the internet giants scrape off the top of their profits. When users use apps such as WeChat they don’t send texts or make calls that they have to pay for.

China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator with more than 760 million users, still generates nearly 70% of its revenue from traditional voice and texting services, the exact segment of the market that’s being hit as more smartphone users type and whisper messages into apps like

WeChat.

The telecoms giant is lumbering on this issue. If it considers Tencent and Sina to be taking a free ride, the internet firms likely think of China Mobile as rigid, uncreative and slow to respond to demand.

Up and over the top Operators in China have been slow to catch on to the OTT trend. Where once users made calls and sent text messages, earning fees for telecoms firms, they are increasingly commu-

BUSINESS: MOBILE INTERNET

voice-to-internet-protocol service called Jego, which functions similar to Skype.

Such a model is flawed, however.

Despite herding users away from independent messaging apps, the services will not retrieve the voice and text messaging revenues that China Mobile has lost to internet firms. At best, it will “keep some users in its own garden,” Neha Dharia, a Bangalorebased telecoms analyst at research firm Ovum, said in an interview.

“It’s going to be hard to get mobile operators to compete with OTT giants because the nature of their business is so different,” Dharia said. “Mobile operators get money from voice, from text and from data. So for them to come up with an OTT service, it’s detrimental to their own business.”

Internationally, other major mobile operators have tried to corral their users into using services that they codeveloped – many to little avail. Telephonica, a Spain-based global telecoms firm, launched a free messaging app in May 2012 only to ditch the product little more than a year later.

Ganging up on the big guy If building its own messaging services doesn’t work, China Mobile may have a few other tricks up its sleeve. Given that the company answers directly to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), it may be able to convince the agency to tighten up regulation of the industry and even collect new fees from unfriendly business.

In March last year, it looked

EYES DOWN: Huge demand for mobile internet should provide an opportunity for profit from lucrative data subscriptions, if China Mobile can actually deliver a reliable service

China Economic Review | February 2014

Credit: Cory M. Grenier

nicating over the internet thanks to smartphones. That is biting hard into the telcos’ earnings.

China Mobile is the poster child for rigidity in the industry. Analysts note the behemoth’s inability to adapt to a changing technology environment or cash in on data services.

Mobile operators worldwide have experienced billions in losses to OTT services, yet many have made that money back with slick 3G and 4G networks, as they are able to charge users for data packages. China Mobile is widely scorned by Chinese users for its poor 3G network, which by most accounts has failed to bring the company adequate returns. Its 4G network, while expected to drive the company forward, was only licensed in December and can’t be measured for success just yet.

The country’s OTT industry is one of the world’s most innovative and fastest growing, and as the industry leader in the country, China Mobile has lost the most to such services. It’s not surprising that the company has also led the way in competing directly with companies such as Tencent.

In March 2013 China Mobile said it would revamp its Fetion platform, an instant messaging service that launched in 2007. The service was originally intended to compete with internet-based messaging applications such as Tencent’s QQ and MSN Instant Messenger, long before China’s smartphone era. The push to expand Fetion was an attempt to pull users off of WeChat and onto its homegrown service.

That effort hasn’t gained traction but China Mobile hasn’t given up. In November, the company launched a

35

BUSINESS: MOBILE INTERNET

like that could happen. MIIT head Miao Wei said that OTT players, while accruing hundreds of millions of users on their services, made no contribution to the mobile networks on which they proliferated. He said that mobile operators might be allowed to collect fees from internet companies in the future.

Global companies have tried similar strategies to weed out pesky messaging apps. The Dutch telecoms firm KNP sought to add charges to the bills of users of WhatsApp, a global chat service similar to WeChat, after the company started losing revenues from text messaging. The Dutch parliament blocked the extra fee in 2012, leaving KNP at the mercy of innovative, disruptive technologies.

Fears that MIIT will levy heavy fees on players like Tencent have subsided for now. That’s because China Unicom, the country’s No. 2 mobile operator, quietly announced a partnership with WeChat in August. The tie-up, a cobranded sim card that gives Unicom users exclusive emoticons, the smiley faces and animations that increasingly appear in messages, and a little free mobile data, demonstrated a tolerance among some mobile operators for OTT products and services developed by internet companies. But more importantly, it’s a strategy to strike at the biggest player in the market.

“China Unicom and [China] Telecom are more open to the internet players. They want to cooperate with the players to compete with China Mobile,” said Vincent Fu, a principal analyst for technology and service providers at research firm Gartner. “China Mobile is more concerned about them because they’re the market leader.”

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China Economic Review | February 2014

“China Unicom and [China] Telecom are more open to the internet players. They want to cooperate with the players to compete with China Mobile ...

China Mobile is more concerned about them as it is the market leader.” - Vincent Fu, a principal analyst at Gartner China Telecom, the smallest of the three operators, has followed suit.

In August, the firm formed a joint venture with Chinese internet firm Netease to launch a messaging service called Yixin. The more China Mobile pushes against new OTT services, the more China Unicom and China Telecom will seek out tie-ups. By partnering directly with Tencent, China Unicom may succeed in pulling some customers away from China Mobile.

“One reason that they were cooperating was that China Mobile was so against WeChat. So it was their way of gaining market share,” Dharia said.

China’s two smaller mobile operators are less sensitive to low text and voice revenues because they make more money from individual data users than China Mobile does. For them, more messaging and social media apps on their networks mean more revenue from data services.

Tough virtual reality If that wasn’t enough, a new competi-

tor to mobile operators reared its head in December: Mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs. Late last year, MIIT issued 10 licenses to companies to operate networks that can sidestep the major mobile players. A virtual network license will allow companies to rent network space from mobile operators in order to conduct their own mobile and data services.

This should be a wakeup call to China Mobile. Before long, OTT services will no longer need to use its mobile data to reach customers. If Tencent became a mobile virtual operator, “it wouldn’t need to deal with China Mobile anymore,” Dharia said.

Only domestic private companies can apply for the licenses now, but Fu said there is word that the central government could open the industry to partnerships with foreign companies in the not-so-distant future, another potential shakeup to the market.

China Mobile should stop with the name calling and figure how to get in good with some of China’s most innovative companies before it’s too late.

By partnering with companies that make popular apps, the operator can attract new customers to its network.

But first it will need to generate better revenues with its 4G network than it did with its 3G blunder, which would make it less sensitive to decreasing text message income.

In the future, the operator and the internet firms should also be able to forge revenue-sharing deals that will help China Mobile get a little bit more of what it feels it deserves. “They both need each other and a lot of operators are realizing that,” Dharia said. “[Tieups] will happen more and more in a couple of years.”

MARKETS & FINANCE: CHINA IPO

False start China is trying to reopen its IPO market, but it’s not going according to plan

WAIT A BIT LONGER: Regulators said at the beginning of the January that around 50 companies had been approved to list on various domestic stock markets but the problems of state interference and overly high share pricing still plague the system

T

he re-opening of mainland securities markets to IPOs is off to a bad start.

After a 15-month pause, Jiangsu Aosaikang Pharmaceutical was one among several Chinese firms pricing for an offering in January. However, after pricing its shares at 67 times its net profit in 2012, Aosaikang said in an urgent statement that the scale of the sale was “relatively big” and that it would have to postpone the IPO. Then five more firms said they would suspend their IPOs. The announcements from the com-

panies smack of behind-the-scenes coercion from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).

Unnamed sources told Reuters as much. According to a report from the news agency, CSRC had pressured Aosaikang into delaying the IPO, although the regulator denies this.

But CSRC did say on its website that it would tighten its supervision over new IPOs. The regulator will do spot inspections on companies during the pricing process. Underwriters and issuers will be punished if they use information not available in pro-

spectuses. Companies will also have to warn investors if their price-to-earnings ratios are higher than the average, as Aosaikang was. Reuters said that the average for ChiNext, Shenzhen’s board for startups, was about 55.

The delayed IPOs are a bad sign for what is already one of the worst performing markets in the world.

On the regulation side, CSRC’s heavy hand at the onset of what was supposed to be a new era for IPOs is discomforting. Last year closed with a commitment from China’s top leaders to move the market away from

China Economic Review | February 2014

37

MARKETS & FINANCE: CHINA IPO

a rigid yet unpredictable regulation system run by the CSRC to something more akin to the registration systems used in developed markets.

In a registration system, instead of trying to hit moving regulation targets set by officials, which often shrink with the amount of liquidity in the market, companies would be required only to meet basic listing requirements before IPOs. The rest would be decided by the market.

Zhao Xijun, Vice Director of Peking University’s Finance and Securities Institute, told China Economic Review in November it was likely that, when mainland markets re-opened to IPOs, CSRC would adopt such a system. There is still a chance that could happen at a meeting in March, the first opportunity the regulator will have to change the rules. However, the increased controls on IPOs are not promising.

China market watchers are hoping the move was a one-off from a jittery CSRC, worried that companies will be greatly overvalued and once again sap liquidity from an already dry market.

Another distressing sign from the Aosaikang affair is its PE ratio. At 67 times its net profit in 2012, investors are showing an eagerness to buy up shares on par with the mentality that led to boom and bust in the market in 2006 and 2007. The firm had priced at US$12.06 per share, rather high for a company that is testing the waters of a stagnant market.

If the true test of the value of companies will be left up to the market to decide, it will take much more savviness on the part of investors, not a free-forall come IPO time.

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China Economic Review | February 2014

In the statement, CSRC hinted at tougher punishments for companies and underwriters that conceal information from investors. That kind of talk is welcome. As Zhao pointed out in November, only increased culpability for cheaters will make investors safe. Handing out prison sentences to

offenders will be difficult, given the close ties between company executives and the regulator itself.

It has few other choices, though, if China really wants to “play the stock exchange game,” as investors, many of whom are elderly citizens, call it today in China.

Chinese IPO stocks: Overpriced?

In early January six companies said

viduals who comprise the majority of

they were suspending their IPOs. Of

investors in mainland China stocks.

those six companies, five were due

Many of those investors have lost

to list on ChiNext, China’s NASDAQ-

large sums of money in recent years

style board of growth enterprises (see

after buying into overpriced IPOs and

table). The news triggered worries

seeing the share prices of those firms

among analysts and industry watch-

drop. In its announcement, CSRC said

ers that regulators were still meddling

that any company that priced its IPO

with the IPO system despite promises

at a premium to its industrial peers in

late last year that investors and the

the secondary market, measured by

market would be left alone to price the

the price-to-earnings ratios, would

shares of companies going public. On

need to hold back from opening sub-

January 12, China Securities Regula-

scriptions to retail investors by three

tory Commission (CSRC) announced

weeks while at same time making any

that it would further tighten supervi-

risks known. The regular also said it

sion of IPOs, a move which analysts

would conduct random spot checks

said was likely aimed at protecting

of book-building and roadshows in a

the interests of the millions of indi-

bid to keep companies in check.

Listing on ChiNext Post-offering PE ratio

Offer price (RMB per share) 80

70 60 50

70

Average age PE ratio*

60 50

40

40

30

30

20

20

10

10

0

0 Netposa etposa Technologies

Hebei Huijin NSFocus Information Electromechanical Technology

* ChiNext, January 20, 2014 Source: China Securities Investor Protection Fund

Beijing Forever Technology

Jiangsu Aosaikang Pharmaceutical

2014ฤ2Ꮬఓ

营销新浪潮 新营销 多屏时代 房价还会涨么

www.cerchinese.com

目录

ቤ਋‫ފ‬ 40 从繁荣到危机

41 ௡ୡ ॖෂ৺ူ 42 新营销 44 多屏时代

જᄌ 46 大数据变革 47 温控物流联结中欧 48 品牌倾向 49 ळଥથ્ᐿඐ

42

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ॖෂ৺ူ

50 与自然共生

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ఘᒦਪ 51 ઢ፩਒೹

从繁荣到危机

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中国是否已在改革发展中透支了红利 文 | 博艺

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关

于中国经济是否已经步入危机，危

法。美元是不是能“复兴十年”？现在看

房地产危机如果爆发，银行和地方政府的

机论者认为：统计数据不可信，唯

美元出现了复苏的迹象，2008年经济危机

巨额债务可能会导致经济发展链条的断

GDP论激化社会矛盾，未来可持续发展的

未能撼动美元和美国经济的地位，更重要

裂，重蹈日本“失去二十年”的覆辙，那

可能性无法确定。

的是美国经济似乎已经复苏。

么，解决房地产危局有何良方？还有地缘 政治的危局，东海南海和周边国家的领土

主流意识形态大约分为两类，一类是

中国是不是一定会经历“痛苦的十

美国阴谋论，认为中国是在为美国买单，

年”？是否已在改革发展中透支了红利？

而美国会掠夺走中国改革开放三十年的所

目前似乎显露出了一点迹象。新兴市场的

中华元智库创办人张庭宾在《美元

有红利；另一类是认为中国不会重蹈日本

暴涨暴跌历来就是普遍现象，金砖四国的

复兴十年？or中国痛苦十年？》自序中写

的覆辙，中国特色的改革开放之路必定前

投资回报率降低，增长顶峰期已过整体增

道：“从繁荣到危机的转变，表面上是国

途光明。

速放缓，这已是不争的事实。而最早提出

力和民力被透支，本质上是这个国家一些

争端不断，也会给经济带来不小的冲击。

“债务迫近中国”、“世界工厂的失

金砖四国概念的高盛公司在2011年12月的

掌握权力和资源的精英自私而贪婪，当他

去”、“内需得不到拯救”，还有环境污

《全球经济报告》中就明确指出，金砖四

们丧失了信仰、道德和责任难免被弃如敝

染问题、粮食问题、石油问题、房地产问

国的黄金十年已经过去。

屣，只追求物质享受，只为个人、家庭和

题等等，无论从哪个层面看，这些担心都

历经三十年高速发展，中国内生动力

既得利益集团谋福利，势必牺牲国家和公

不是多余的，甚至是有益的。正处在经济

的经济结构转型之路应该怎么走？如果步

众的正当权益。”而要让危机变转机“只

上升期的国人大约很难接受即将衰退的想

入危机，将会以什么样的形式表现出来？

能靠重建信仰找到精神自我救赎之路”。

China Economic Review | February 2014

聚焦

由于欧美经济好转，出口会有所增长

宏观经济与产业趋势预测

心是金融改革，实质就是实现金融的自由

与。此外，韩国亦将在国民购买海外地产

汇丰预测今年GDP增长7.4%

化、汇率的国际化、利率的市场化，使自

方面实施更为宽松的政策。

汇丰大中华区首席经济学家屈宏斌维持

贸区成为境内企业与海外资本、市场对接

对2014年中国GDP增长7.4%和2015年

的窗口。自贸区的设立将进一步助力中国

健康服务行业十大趋势

7.7%的预测，而2014年或有上行风险。

企业“走出去”。中国市场的竞争正日趋

罗兰贝格预测2014年中国健康服务行业将

展望2014年，下面几种改革会走在前面：

激烈，通过收购而掌握先进科技的中国企

出现如下趋势：第一，民营医院2014年将

金融改革存款利率市场化会加速，人民币

业将在市场中拥有决定性的优势，而美国

首次从数量上超过公立医院；第二，公立

资本项目可兑换项目也会加速，营改增范

与欧洲经济的复苏也令进驻这些市场显得

医院加紧规模扩张，万张床位航母呼之欲

围进一步扩大，市政债发行增加，以及能

更具吸引力。未来几年，伴随着人民币国

出；第三，三类社会资本加快进入健康服

源价格的进一步的改革，尤其是减政放权

际购买力的提升、跨境交易日益增多，中

务；第四，养老服务年增速超过20％，医

的推进。除了短期有利的改革措施外，由

国企业有极大的兼并收购的机会

养结合或是关键；第五，健康和疾病管理

于欧美经济好转，出口会有所增长，比去

得到重视，亟需多方合作打造可行模式；

年不到8%不长有所改善，更重要的是通货

亚洲物业投资者加大对外投资

第六，医药器械企业穷则思变，寻求模式

膨胀将会维持温和可控，这意味着2014年

高力国际发布《2014年亚洲房地产市场前

创新；第七，慢性病患病率重排座次，呼

没有必要在货币政策上，在总量上从紧。

瞻》报告指出，2014年亚洲经济增长速度

吸系统急速攀升；第八，商业健康险突破

人民币最大亮点就在于资本项目可兑换进

加快，工业产值及零售业销售额提升，预

千亿，领先商保可望全方位参与经办基本

程的加速，但升幅将有所降低。

示2014年区内物业市场前景向好。核心区

医保；第九，第三方服务如检验检测加速

的供应紧张及租金上涨将使写字楼及零售

成长；第十，马年除夕病假单开具申请或

跨国并购将成为热点

租户迁至核心区外价格较为实惠的地区。

将创历史新高和世界纪录。

清科研究中心分析师曹紫婷认为，目前全

高力国际亚洲研究及咨询行政董事卢永辉

球并购市场相较于前两年呈现出复苏的迹

表示：“亚洲市场的一个显著特征是，投

A股走势不会一飞冲天

象，其中新兴经济体起到了不可忽视的推

资者的对外资本投资很可能大幅增加。他

诺亚财富投资策略报告认为，2014年整

助力量。像中国这样受经济危机冲击较小

们将力争利用亚洲与欧美之间在物业周期

体A股走势并不会如大家期望那样一飞冲

的新兴市场国家，基于庞大的外汇资金储

上的巨大差异，获取更高收益，享受分散

天。目前A股整体的市盈率（TTM）仅为

备，将在全球并购中有着卓越的表现。另

投资的策略优势。”中国投资者将引领这

12.48，已经跌破历史均值减1个标准差的

外，银行利率目前处于较低水品，企业贷

趋势。与去年相比，他们在海外物业资产

下限。因此如果从长线投资的角度来看，

款用于收购的成本也相应减少，这些因素

上的投资将最少增加一倍。伦敦、纽约、

目前A股整体市盈率的确偏低，有一定的

皆为复苏中的全球并购活动提供了有力的

芝加哥等门户城市将成为最受青睐的投资

投资价值。可适当关注相关的高铁、核

资金支持。同时上海自由贸易区设立的核

地点。中国台湾地区机构投资者也积极参

电、医疗环保和国企并购重组等概念股。

China Economic Review | February 2014

41

封面故事

新营销 探索大数据时代在线营销的变革之道

基

是艺术也是科学

来，在谷歌、亚马逊、沃尔玛等全

去年夏天，百事可乐推出“渴望就现

球领先企业的带动下，在线互动营销升级

在”品牌活动的MV，邀请知名女歌手吴莫

度来看活动效果，包括这一次代言，要求

到了最新的版本。

愁做代言，在全球最大的中文媒体平台百

大数据是即时性的，可以随时改动活动策

目前中国已拥有全球最大的网民市

度上，这一活动在6亿网民中的反馈怎样？

略。但他也指出，不能单纯看表面数据，

场，人均在线时长是全球水平的2倍；中国

吴莫愁的百度搜索量达到了多少？百度副

如春节有7亿多人回家过年，但其中很多

在线零售渗透率在全球属于偏上水平，平

总裁曾良给出的答案是：吴莫愁每季度的

年轻人其实不想回家过年，拿到这类数据

均每月每人的网购时间超过3小时。2012

搜索量高达2400万，这意味着她的搜索量

后，才能把握回家的主题。

年中国在线交易规模1.3万亿元人民币，占

比王菲更高，即使后者有离婚新闻，她也

很多人以为营销应与创意相关，曾良

零售总额5%至6%；而美国2013年在线交

远远超过另一知名歌手李代沫。搜索数据

却认为，大数据时代营销是“技术活”。

易预计超2000亿美元，占零售总额10%。

来自无线或百度各频道，如百科、视频、

随着互联网特别是移动互联网的飞速发

两者差距不大。全球TOP15在线企业中有

图片频道，每个频道都特别高，体现了网

展，网民行为发生了很大变化：获取信息

8家是中国公司，阿里巴巴已是位居亚马逊

民对吴莫愁的关注度。

的方式碎片化了；移动社交工具出现后，

于大数据时代的营销变革扑面而

百事可乐首席营销官理查德·李 （Richard

Lee）表示，百事每天通过百

之后的全球第二大在线企业，并且人均在

曾良分析认为，原来百事搜索量维持

人们会更主动地搜索、分享和评论；获取

线时长远超亚马逊。这是数字媒体统计公

在比较平的状态，但吴莫愁代言后，百事

信息实现了多屏互动，通过电视、电脑或

司ComScore的数据。从中可见中国在线

搜索量急剧上升，说明百事品牌与代言人

手机等不同屏幕获取信息，如在看《中国

市场的潜在需求十分巨大，中国营销界能

建立了双赢的合作，从搜索量来看是非常

好声音》吴莫愁表演时用手机搜索，就导

否迎头赶上？

成功的代言合作。

致搜索量急剧上升。 今天，品牌广告主把握消费者的难 度比以前更大，因此需要借助大数据的力 量。曾良表示，从这个角度来看营销确实 是技术活：需要对有效的海量数据进行分 析，才能把握消费者的行为，进而做出正 确决策。每个人的直觉与基于百度搜索数 据得出的结论可能会有点偏差，因为每个 人只反映自己的意图，数据则代表海量的 信息。那么，营销创意到底是艺术还是科 学？以往更多通过直觉判断，会产生好的 结果，但有时结果未必尽如人意。今天， 直觉加上数据分析就等于更好的决策，因 此一定要用数据作为基础。品牌广告主选 择形象代言人时，可以根据百度数据进行 分析，再考虑品牌特质，选择气质最符合 的明星，就会取得事半功倍的效果。“从 这个角度来讲，创意是艺术也是科学。在 今天的大数据时代，营销就是在数据基础 上加上良好直觉判断的完美结合。”曾良

在线营销升级到最新版本

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China Economic Review | February 2014

说道。

营销新浪潮

移动营销 两三年前手机与“营销”往往是分 开的，但是到了今天两者完全结合在一 起。OMG浩腾媒体的张振伟表示，手机是 离消费者最近的工具，智能手机在未来两 年完全有可能取代其他上网设备。 移动互联时代，内容越来越重要，而 用户就是内容的生产者。国内较具代表性 的移动社交服务网站人人网就有很多用户 案例。如用户过生日，他的朋友马上会在 上面给他祝福；或者他随时遇到一些奇人 轶事，随时就可能想要分享；或者在社交 平台上有一些好友，他们在线下聚首时， 可能才发现时间已过去了10年，他们会把 聚首时间照片与10年前的照片放在一起， 在好友中间传播。

类似定位这样的特殊功能能够促进人与人之间的连接

智能手机能够为商家提供与消费者建 立连接的渠道。类似定位这样的特殊功能

可以和消费者面对面沟通，社会新媒体和

当天会发生什么事情，这对品牌来说是很

能够促进人与人之间的连接，而这些功能

移动工具普及后，商家有了这样的机会，

可怕的事情。但这只是开始，未来所有数

在PC时代是无法实现的。目前80%的用

所以现在是实时广告最好的时代。

据打通后，希望可以将这些非常散的数据 转变成有迹可循。

户是用APP上人人网，只有很少一部分人

亿滋中国市场行销部副总监赵子峡

使用PC。人人网COO江志强认为，移动

也有同感，他认为，社会化媒体的蓬勃发

李桂芬表示，这个案例只是迈出了一

手机触发了多屏时代电子产品的互通，已

展，催生了消费者无缝融入的契机，商家

小步，但代表了某个方向，从此起步，也

不仅是营销的中心，更是一种商业手段，

可以在第一时间聆听到消费者的声音，了

许可以将广告创意做到更深更远，甚而成

能够与服务和营销连接，起到非常重要的

解他们的需求，进行零距离、24小时的深

为行业的标杆。

作用。有了大数据的助力，数据可以更

度沟通和互动，从而助力品牌，深化品牌

精准，广告投放效率可以更高。江志强希

与消费者的关系。

大数据时代

望，通过大数据的分析能够使广告投放更

凯络社交媒体导师王凡介绍，这一

对于大数据的影响力，哈佛大学前

加人性化和更精准，也能够更好地与消费

活动的实时性体现在通过大数据的挖掘，

校长拉里·萨默斯（Lawrence Sum-

者融合。

找到了相关节日网友会搜索的关键词以及

mers）有过如许评价：“我感觉到当迄今

关注的话题，从这些大数据中得出今年要

200年来的历史被书写时，出现了一种趋

实时广告

在哪些媒体平台上投放相应的广告。而广

势，这种趋势就像我们活着的时候人类思

大数据时代，商家不但可以更多地了

告是针对消费者类型定向的，男生与女生

维中发生的某个重要的事情，那就是与过

解消费者过去的行为，还可以更准确地预

看到的广告不一样，北京与上海看到的也

去相比，在很大范围的行动中，我们正在

测消费者接下来的行为，并在大数据平台

有分别，甚至不同星座看到的广告也有差

变得理性、善于分析和由数据驱动。”

上与消费者进行即时互动。

异，大量内容是根据网友的分类而制作出

去年愚人节，安吉斯与凯络的数字营

来的。

“与西方同行相比，除了在一些大型 国有企业和技术驱动行业，中国营销人员

销团队，策划了一个高爆发性品牌的沟通

在愚人节当天，组织很多人实时了

整体上还处于消费者数据收集和分析的起

活动，并且就这个品牌的主题与消费者进

解网友讨论什么，然后针对该品牌的调性

步阶段。”这是罗兰贝格管理咨询公司在

行实时互动，实现了非常好的宣传效果。

进行创意和二次传播。“这件事里给广告

《大数据变革》中文版序中的一段话。

相比传统媒体，在线实时互动的优势

人、传媒人一个启发，信息不再是唯一、

只有将大数据进行智能转换的企业才

在哪里？安吉斯媒体大中华区执行长李桂

完整的，而是被切成不同的碎片，随着网

会成功。中国营销人理应抓住大数据时代

芬表示，过去受传统媒体的限制，不一定

友的喜好在变化。如何捕捉、发布、创作

提供的绝佳机遇，主动实现互动营销的新

能将消费者想知道的信息，在对的时间和

相关的信息是非常麻烦的事情。”王凡说

变革，从而更好地把握消费者的心态，赢

对平台上传达给对方。过去品牌一直希望

道。在策划这个活动时，连王凡也不知道

得他们的青睐。

China Economic Review | February 2014

43

封面故事

多屏时代 如何利用视频多屏化进行整合营销尚有待探索

以及发布渠道的互联网电视机企业，还拥 有乐视影业公司—与其他影业公司不同 之处在于具备强大的互联网基因和基础。 “乐视影业的商业模式领先好莱坞3 年。”乐视影业总裁张昭认为，中国在电 影的创意制作上落后了好莱坞很多年，但 在中国市场上如果将电影产业与互联网进 行整合，就有机会在全球电影市场的营销 上创造出领先的局面。去年乐视影业已与 张艺谋签约，张昭表示：“他选择了乐视 这样拥有五个屏幕的平台，来开创他事业 的第三个十年。” 由影星李小璐和甘薇制作的《女人帮 妞儿》在网上播放10多天浏览量就突破了 一亿大关。张昭透露，2014年准备拍摄 《女人帮 妞儿》电影，票房收入达到几亿 元应该没有问题，而网络数据会成为这部 电影未来市场策略的核心依据。 这也许是一部真正意义上能够五屏联 动的影视剧。而2014年还将推出张艺谋导 各大视频企业纷纷试水多屏营销

演的《归来》，从开拍第一天起就在网络 投放了近30款短视频，点击量已很可观，

上海张江高科技园区一家视频公司

在

不容忽视，如何利用视频多屏化进行整合

都是张艺谋导演和明星、工作人员每天拍

工作的张先生，离开办公室来到

营销则是有待探索的话题，一些视频公司

摄的内容。通过这部电影，乐视网营销副

走廊上，掏出手机准备看一段娱乐视频，

已积累了比较成功的案例。

总裁谭靖颖希望不仅找到广告客户，更希

却错按了一个不该按的键。此后发生的事 情让他尴尬不已：这段视频被推送到了办

44

望找到战略合作伙伴，创造出更多的营销

乐视：五屏生活

案例。她认为，媒体平台的价值和魅力，

公室同事的电脑屏幕上。怎么会这样？原

乐视集团拥有乐视网、乐视云平台，

来，张先生的手机安装了由PPTV聚力公

还收购了花儿影视，拥有自制团队，并在

司开发的一种新技术，只要有无线网络，

去年陆续推出了乐视超级电视，奠定了互

从去年第四季度开始，乐视网已经准

就可以将手机视频“拨”出去，也即能够

联网电视的基础。对于乐视集团已形成

备好了2014年要开展的五屏营销的各种筹

实现视频的多屏互动功能。而这只是小的

的“乐视生态”，乐视网事业群执行总裁

划方案。王祥芸介绍，除了五屏能够触及

技术创新，PPTV和乐视网等视频公司已

王祥芸是这样解释的，“从平台到内容到

到的用户，还有一个重要纬度是从线上到

在制作适应多屏播放的影视剧，已经播出

终端到应用的四大引擎组合起来，又开放

线下，就是O2O的概念。乐视网通过多屏

的几部影视剧则获得了网民的追捧。

又闭环的生态。”

覆盖，有机会将O2O做得更精彩。比方在

不仅要创造和满足用户所有的需求，同时 更需要提供与广告主对话和互动的平台。

艾瑞咨询数据显示，中国在线视频

“四屏”是指电视、个人电脑、智能

手机上下载二维码，可以在电影院使用，

市场保持快速增长，去年规模达128亿

手机、平板电脑PAD，乐视网提出了“五

回到家在电视机上还可以继续互动，再将

元，2017年预计将达366亿元。多屏时代

屏生活”的概念，第五屏就是电影屏幕。

PC或PAD等互联网终端串接起来，就能

已然拉开帷幕，而在线视频的市场潜力又

王祥芸表示，乐视网是唯一拥有自己生产

够做出非常精彩的整合营销。

China Economic Review | February 2014

营销新浪潮

PPTV：跨屏娱乐互动

命，没有新点子和新想法就落后了，就一

联网媒体需要有融合的过程，过渡阶需要

去年11月，PPTV聚力公司与广西

定没有生命力。PPTV广告运营中心总经

将两大平台联合起来，但发展到最后就只

卫视同步播出了一部260集的网台互动日

理石苏表示，该公司绝大部分广告主都是

有节目内容和互联网。他表示，现在很多

播剧，这部剧由四组导演团队每天轮番拍

针对移动端人群量身定制的，其中40%是

视频网站也在做节目，可能会放在卫视播

摄。广州英扬万盈影业有限公司是该剧的

奢侈品，30%是汽车，其他高端快销和日

出，但节目与视频网站打造的高清长视频

投资制作方，英扬集团董事长兼总裁黄英

常生活用品占10%。他称该公司最大的创

没有关系，这尚属初级阶段。娃哈哈市场

毅表示，电视剧以往只属于电视媒体，多

新在于广告形式，率先在所有移动端实现

部部长杨秀玲认为，广告主既在电视平台

屏时代来临后，要重新定义影视剧的形

了屏幕内的强互动和深度链接，包括多形

上投也在互联网业投，这也是网台联动。

态，要创造出一种适合多屏时代播放的影

式展现。而在跨屏领域，每个广告都有很

但杜昉真正看重的网台联动，就是酷6一直

视剧。

大突破，所有广告位在PAD、PC、TV三

坚持想要做成的中国的YouTube或“私媒

个终端都是一个平台，开发一次三个屏幕

体”的聚合平台。

“就像网络剧是为网络做的，这还不 是我们想要的。”他称该剧的拍摄和播出

就可以联动展现。

中国视频行业与美国的发展方向大相

是为“互联网时代的剧种全新变革”，可 以让演员和观众零距离接触。未来希望将

径庭，优酷土豆、爱奇艺等更多是经营电

酷6：网台联动

视的概念，热衷购买大片。YouTube是怎

网友投稿来的故事拍成剧集，网友还可以

以UGC（用户生成内容）为主的酷6

样的呢？群邑中国互动营销总裁陈建豪举

对剧中人物的着装等提出意见。以往电视

网提出了网台联动的策略。与浙江卫视合

了一例子：有位越南裔美国女孩在You-

剧里的角色与观众脱离，而这部日播剧则

作的《全民奥斯卡》是酷6打造原创内容和

Tube上传一些烫发化妆的视频，有一次

不同，人物会和观众共同成长。

生态链体系的创新，将电视加入生态链，

她上传了教大家怎么画Lady Gaga妆的视

让电视观众也能看到优质的UGC内容，同

频，结果有700万人上去看，她一下就出

时将UGC制作者引到台前。

名了。欧莱雅发现了这个女孩后就主动与

从电视台的角度来看，最发愁的就是 广告营销，目前卫星电视的广告经营方式 还很单一。PPTV网络电视营销副总裁周

酷6网CEO杜昉认为，网台联动是过

雅娜认为，对媒体和营销而言，创新是生

渡性策略，目前非常重要，电视媒体与互

她合作。 杜昉表示，UGC视频网站需要有发 现的眼光和发现的途径，酷6就是要挖掘并 提供这样的渠道，关键是将自媒体里有意

2010-2017中国在线视频行业市场规模

思的内容挖掘出来，包装好再推送出去。 广告主想要的无非就是这种UGC，无论是

600 500

植入还是贴片广告。

100.1% 41.9%

78.1%

38.7%

32.4%

43.9%

26.8%

400

22.7% 366.0

298.4

300

新等成为广告主视频营销的趋势。艾瑞咨

177.8

询分析师徐昊认为，未来将有更多在线视

128.1 100

62.7

频企业进入互联网电视这一新领域，电视

90.3

端将成为各大视频企业进行多屏营销的重

31.4

要载体。

0 2010

艾瑞咨询数据显示，广告仍是在线视 频行业的营收支柱，去年广告收入占比高 达75%；而大剧曝光、自制植入和广告创

235.3 200

来日方长

2011

2012

2013 2013e

在线视频市场规模（亿元）

2014 2014e

2015 2015e

2016 2016e

2017 2017e

同比增长率（%）

来源：综合企业财报及专家访谈，根据艾瑞统计模型核算。仅供参考。

当今的商业营销如水银泻地，无孔 不如。视频属于内容产业，应将“内容为 王”贯彻始终，切不可急功近利，为了短 期利益而粗制滥造或过度营销，最终将会 导致观众弃之而去。新兴产业的主导者应

©2014. 1 iResearch Inc.

该具备长远而深邃的战略眼光。

China Economic Review | February 2014

45

话题

大数据变革 让客户数据驱动利润奔跑

数据是市场营销和销售的下一个前

大

烈的迹象表明中国公司在数据驱动营销领

优胜者已经推动变革：电子商务领导者阿

沿地带。在一个日益互联的世界，

域的快速发展：数据收集和分析能力：在

里巴巴将数据挖掘作为它的三项核心业务

对数据勤于收集和有见地的分析使得公司

过去的10年中，中国大多数大公司已经

之一，另外两项分别是电子商务和金融。

可以前所未有地了解它们的消费者。用有

建立了有意义的IT资源，并且已经建设了

阿里巴巴最近创建了一个数据平台部门，

形的统计知识武装后，现在它们也可以改

它们的基本数据设施，尽管仍然需要许多

约有800名员工。其他互联网公司，例如

进企业和产品，使其比以往任何时候都更

投入。中国拥有世界上最大的互联网和智

腾讯和百度也在做类似的努力。互联网领

加紧密地迎合消费者的需求。在这个产品

能手机用户社区，产生了巨大的并且还在

域之外，数据应用先驱可以在金融服务业

差异化已经不再是一个可持续竞争优势的

不断增长的数据，这些数据正在等待被处

（中信证券）、通信业（中国移动）和零

世界，了解消费者是必要的。一名天才创

理、分析和应用。人才库：中国是新一代

售业（农夫山泉）找到。

意的头脑根据对消费者的直觉设计广告促

天才数据科学家准备把他们的技能在商业

随着中国公司和消费者的成熟，我们

销已经是企业界早已逝去的回忆。今天的

世界以及营销世界付诸实践的家园。虽然

相信这种数据驱动的营销和销售方法将变

营销需要基于数据驱动洞察每个消费者偏

同时拥有过硬的科学技能和丰富营销经验

得越来越意义重大。公司未来的成功将取

好制定差异化定位。

的高级管理人员仍然是稀缺昂贵的资源，

决于中国消费者能被怎样了解、定位和说

但从现在起再过至多十年，一切看起来可

服。领先公司已经开始思考如何准备向这

能非常不一样。

个数据时代过渡，即如何从以技术为主导

在过去的30年，中国一直在生产迫切 需要带给消费者的那些产品。了解这些消

引发中国的数据革命还需要做什么？

确的，企业面临的挑战是比竞争对手更快

大多数中国公司通常仍然专注于建设支

速、更便宜。任何快速增长的市场中，确

持IT的基础设施和基本的商业智能解决方

成功的过渡需要深刻变革，至少在企

立存量和规模对商业成功的重要性已经远

案，它们在实际销售和营销应用的前景有

业文化和组织方面。这正是第三方合作伙

远超过准确了解销售对象。

限。为此我们看到了形成数据分析战略，

伴可以扮演重要角色的地方，它们可以帮

或者通往数据驱动价值创造的路线图中转

助中国公司利用全球数据驱动营销和销售

瞬即逝的机会。

的经验，包括设计整体数据战略、IT能力

这就是说，中国的营销人员也需要 付出巨大的努力打造品牌，一些家喻户晓

业务增长。

的全国品牌，如蒙牛（乳业）、平安（金

国内数据先驱的迅速崛起显示，将

建设和建立合适的组织及流程。（本文系

融服务）或美的（白色家电）已经价值数

数据用于营销和销售的目的在中国可以成

罗兰贝格管理咨询公司为机械工业出版社

十亿美元。然而，品牌忠诚度在中国通常

为一个新竞争优势的来源。这些中国数据

《大数据变革》中文版所作的序言）

很低，大众消费者很容易因为一点价格差 距而转移。那么对大多数中国公司，基本 的企业商业活动，例如生产、成本控制、 销售及分销仍然是首要事项也就不足为奇 了。 在这种环境下，中国的营销仍然是一 个相对传统的业务：基本上是产品驱动， 大多数是来自经验，主要是针对已有产品 的销售效果，而不是激发新产品或商业模 式设计灵感。与西方同行相比，除了在一 些大型国有企业和技术驱动行业，中国营 销人员整体上还处于消费者数据收集和分 析的起步阶段。 尽管存在挑战，我们还是看到有强

46

的方法转为客户导向战略，使用数据带来

费者并不是问题的关键。消费者需求是明

China Economic Review | February 2014

大数据是市场营销和销售的下一个前沿地带

话题

温控物流联结中欧 全球物流巨头在蓉欧快铁上推出铁路运输温控服务

冷

链物流运输的关键在于能否提供先 进可靠的运输温控服务方案。而

今，在海运和空运之外，全球物流巨头已 开始涉足铁路运输温控服务。近日，欧洲 与亚洲领先的海陆空货运服务供应商DHL 全球货运宣布独家在中欧国际直达班列 （蓉欧快铁）上推出铁路运输温控服务。 此项服务使用的DHL集装箱以柴油电 机为动力源，可以实现内部温度的控制、 跟踪和远程管理，可为温度敏感型产品提 供全年适用的多式联运运输解决方案。作 为DHL全球货运2014中国发展计划的重要 部分，该服务的推出将解决长期以来在严 冬和酷夏的数个月中，热敏产品无法通过 高效、经济的西部洲际铁路走廊实现运输 的问题。 DHL全球货运物流亚太区行政总裁梁 启元(Kelvin Leung)介绍道：“在过去3 年中，我们的创新多式联运团队为客户推

黄国哲（左）和梁启元

出了多项开创性的端到端运输解决方案， 为客户节省时间、降低成本、减少二氧化

还提供其他日常服务。例如，从中国的上

确的温度控制。尽管外部的年平均高温超

碳排放。DHL全球货运中欧国际直达班

海、天津或青岛出发，沿横跨西伯利亚的

过26摄氏度，年平均低温达到零下17摄氏

列上的铁路运输温控服务的启动是我们在

北部走廊抵达欧洲。与西部走廊相比，这

度甚至更低，但DHL的客户全年都可以在

今年推出的首项专业化服务。该服务针对

条路线的运输时间稍长。

零下25摄氏度至25摄氏度之间，为其托运 货物设置优化的内部温度，这对于高科技

温度敏感型产品，可保证客户全年都能使

DHL全球货运大中华区首席执行官

用高效的西部洲际铁路走廊，不再受制于

黄国哲(Steve Huang)介绍，火车经过的

天气因素—从最炎热的夏天到最寒冷的

地区温度波动相当大，像酒类、食品、

黄国哲表示：“今年DHL全球货运

冬天，中欧国际直达班列服务全年运转不

药品和有些高科技产品，超过一定温度会

在中国市场的目标是：进一步扩大我们的

休。今年我们还将推出更多创新服务。”

失效。但是现在铁路设备方面没有提供

市场份额，巩固我们在货运领域的领导地

和其他温度敏感型货物的好处尤其明显。

西部走廊起于中国成都，止于波兰

电的接口，不能插电，就不能使用温控

位，持续加强我们在各个物流细分市场中

罗兹，是中国到欧洲之间最快的一条铁路

箱。DHL的温控服务采用铝质材料和高

的优势，为客户提供更加经济实惠的端到

运输路线。中欧国际直达班列由DHL全球

强度钢制成的轻质集装箱，其自身所需电

端解决方案。全新中欧温控铁路运输服务

货运于去年与成都亚欧班列物流有限公司

力由柴油电机提供，形成自给自足的温控

就是一个最好的例子。”

(YHF Logistics)联合推出。后者负责中国

箱。所有集装箱都配有先进的跟踪和定位

据悉，众多国际物流巨头开始在中国

西部走廊上“蓉欧快铁”铁路服务的运营

系统，客户不仅可以实时获悉货物的确切

市场上布局温控物流领域，加紧建设冷库

工作。蓉欧快铁始于中国成都，沿中国西

位置，而且可以在必要时于途中检查和修

和温空服务设施。而国内物流企业在温控

部走廊直通DHL设于波兰马瓦谢维切和罗

改内部温度。

物流领域尚处于起步阶段，与之配套的温

兹的多式联运枢纽，堪称中国与欧洲之间

有了DHL全球货运的温控铁路运输服

最快的铁路联络线。此外，DHL全球货运

务，就可以对这条路线上的集装箱实现精

控设施也需较大投入，不易在短期内获取 良好的经济效益。

China Economic Review | February 2014

47

话题

品牌倾向 中国富豪的消费习惯正处在转型期

上海、广州等一线城市以及中国主要的二 线城市，一线城市占比达到60%。 “胡润富豪经济信心指数”5年来首 次上升，每10位富豪中就有3位对未来两 年的中国经济非常有信心。投资股票的亿 万富豪比千万富豪少一半，亿万富豪投资 艺术品和另类投资较多。投资黄金的比例 比去年减少了6%。中国公务机市场前景看 好，40%的亿万富豪想用公务机，其中接 近一半是通过购买机时卡或合买来使用。 受访富豪普遍比较年轻，千万富豪的 平均年龄为38岁，和去年一样；亿万富豪 的平均年龄为39岁，比去年年轻一岁。平 均财富5920万元，去年平均财富5900万 元。60%不抽烟，40%表示不喝酒，比 5年前增加一倍。看书是亿万富豪最青睐 中国富豪开始购买最适合自己的品牌

的娱乐方式，但旅游仍然最受富豪青睐。 出国旅游他们最喜欢去澳大利亚和法国，

48

今

年中国富豪的平均消费继续下降，

25%。主要原因应该包括了中国经济增速

国内最喜欢三亚和香港。游泳是他们最青

但生活方式和品牌认知度并无明显

的放缓、政府的反腐倡廉，以及中国奢侈

睐的运动方式，除了游泳，男的更喜欢跑

变化。曾经成为全国“两会”争议焦点的

品消费者的日趋成熟。胡润认识的一位宁

步，女的更喜欢瑜伽。高中及以下的富豪

茅台酒今年仍是中国富豪的送礼品牌，但

波籍富豪，此人原来准备购买一辆豪华轿

子女28.7%偏爱英国留学，26%美国；本

在今年“中国千万富豪品牌倾向报告”中

车，现在打算推迟一年再购买。他认为，

科及以上的富豪子女36%偏爱美国留学。

的排名比去年下降了一位，并且是“男性

中国富豪的消费倾向正处于10 年来的转型

古代字画取代手表成为富豪收藏首选；亿

富豪最青睐的送礼品牌前十五名”中仅有

期，开始不再购买最贵的品牌，而是购买

万富豪收藏最爱依旧是手表。网络仍然是

的中国品牌。

最适合自己的品牌。

富豪最主要的信息渠道，尤其是微信，在

也有一些上榜品牌引起了人们的疑

10多年前，胡润在做中国亿万富豪

富豪中也很流行。富豪平均每晚12点半睡

惑。如前些年曾被中央电视台曝光过的某

排行榜时，就有一些品牌商家主动提出，

觉，早上7点起床。富豪比去年工作更忙，

品牌成为“最青睐”家居品牌，而姚明家

想要了解财富比亿万富豪少的千万富豪的

出差比去年多7%，达到每月8天；休闲时

族珍藏则被列为“最佳表现”红酒品牌。

生活方式、消费习惯和品牌认知度，这就

间比去年少20%，除国家法定假日外，只

胡润的解释是，“最青睐”品牌根据客观

成为做“中国千万富豪品牌倾向报告”的

有7.5天假期。

销售数据统计出来，危机过后，该家居品

契机。今年是胡润研究院连续第十次发布

富豪移民比例从去年的60%上升到

牌质量有所提升，仍受到富豪们的青睐；

这一品牌倾向报告。近半年来，胡润研究

64%，主要原因是已移民的亿万富豪都已

而“最佳表现”品牌则由其团队遴选。

院对393位个人资产在一千万元以上的中

占到了1/3。中国高端消费者已经成为全球

胡润表示，今年中国富豪不像前几年

国富豪进行了调研，其中41位资产过亿，

最重要的消费群体，原因之一在于海外购

消费那么厉害了，他们更理性、更成熟，

男女比例为6:4。10年来，胡润研究院至

物的价格优势。胡润认为，中国富豪内心

更加关心自己的风格，以及品牌的文化和

尚优品调查共访问了4818位个人资产在一

比较矛盾，对外喜欢低调，但很难解释的

背后的制作工艺。总体来说，中国富豪平

千万元以上的中国富豪，其中12%资产过

是，全球购买劳斯莱斯和高档手表最多的

均消费比去年下降15%，送礼比去年减少

亿。受访富豪来自23个省市，包括北京、

也就是中国富豪。

China Economic Review | February 2014

话题

房价还会涨么 土地成交价的攀升将推动房价在本年度持续上扬

年房地产市场堪称跌宕起伏。国家

去

构投资者积极的寻找核心资产收购机会，

上海零售物业市场投资活动较2012年有

统计局数据显示，去年12月份70

内资机构特别是银行和保险公司则更为活

所增加。上海核心零售区的投资机会仍较

个大中城市有69个房价上涨，北上广深一

跃，投资商业地产的政策松绑也加速了这

有限。总体而言，商铺物业的投资收益率

线城市新房价格同比涨幅均超过20%，其

一趋势。收益率继续萎缩，外资机构更难

仍继续徘徊于5.0%至5.5%范围内。预计

中上海涨幅最大，达21.9%。新年伊始，

以获取能达到回报要求的资产，这也部分

2014年将有包括金虹桥国际中心和虹桥城

全球领先的房地产服务公司高力国际回顾

使得他们将重心从市中心转到次中心商务

在内的7个项目完工。核心零售区内若干项

了去年上海房地产市场并展望了今年的前

区甚至是商务园区写字楼市场。

目的重新定位以及持续旺盛的需求将使其

景。去年上海写字楼及商铺物业市场投资

今年核心商务区市场预计会有5个新

活动较2012年均有所增加，投资者对上海

增供应，合计约29万平方米，低于过去5

去年两轮调控政策对上海楼市的影响

商业物业市场充满信心，投资情绪维系高

年平均供应水平和吸纳量。空置率预计会

颇为有限，成交量和成交价格在年末仍继

涨。在住宅市场方面，去年出台的“新国

小幅下降。租金会由于金融业和专业服务

续上升。购房者强劲的需求促使发展商增

五条”及“沪七条”调控政策未能抑制楼

领域的需求而上涨，但增长幅度会受制于

加住房新增供应量。截至去年12月22日：

市成交量和成交价格的持续上升。高力国

次中心区域的较大供应。

新建商品住宅新增供应量同比增长30%， 达1135万平方米（93605套）；全市新建

际预计，去年土地市场成交价的攀升也将 推动房价在今年进一步上涨。

核心商圈写字楼

得以平衡，引领租金维持于目前水平。

商铺与住宅

商品住宅总成交量同比上升38%，达1251

上海中高端购物中心物业市场于去年

万平方米（102733套）；上海新建商品

共有7个新项目入市，其中5个坐落于核心

住宅成交均价同比上升7.3%，达人民币

截至去年底，上海核心商务区的甲级

零售区。截至去年末，上海中高端购物中

24121元每平方米，远超2012年2.7%的

写字楼平均租金同比上升0.6%，至人民币

心物业市场总存量同比上升17.9%，接近

年增长率。成交均价的上升主要是由于中

8.9元每天每平方米。按子市场分，浦东同

395万平方米。上海商铺物业需求表现旺

高端项目成交的增长。由于预期租金和资

比上涨5.0%，而浦西则同比下跌2.7%。

盛，录得近十年来最高净吸纳量。这主要

本价值的持续上涨，住宅市场吸引众多国

总体租金增长较前两年显著放缓。上海写

由服装、奢侈品、配饰、娱乐、化妆品、

内外投资者纷纷于核心地段收整栋收购优

字楼投资市场全年保持活跃。尽管外资机

电器、餐饮和个人护理业态所驱动。去年

质物业。

年度展望 高力国际预计，今年上海将继续通过 调控手段来抑制房价的快速增长，尤其是 通过收紧高端住宅项目的预售证发放及增 加中低端项目的土地供应等方式来体现。 然而，纵然需求仍保持强劲，但去年住宅 新开工步伐的放缓将导致今年新增供应量 减少。此外，去年上海土地市场成交价格 的攀升预计将促使发展商于今年项目预售 阶段提高住房售价。这些因素都将最终对 房价的上涨起到一定的助推作用。鉴于去 年强劲的销售业绩表现，今年发展商仍将 热衷于获取新土地。为降低开发风险和利 用共享资源，发展商合作开发优质项目的 上海将继续通过调控手段来抑制房价的快速增长

趋势将继续延续。

China Economic Review | February 2014

49

专栏

与自然共生 以东方文化的综合思维模式济西方的分析思维模式之穷 文 | 海风

田则认为，在近代西方，首先提出“征服 自然”的是弗郎西斯·培根，这种思想与 笛卡尔的“机械论”和伽里略的“实验科 学”结合后，推进了科学技术的革命。进 而断言：“而最近三百年终于确定了‘西 方支配世界’和‘人类支配自然’，也就 好象直接体现了培根‘知识就是力量’的 理念。” 季先生总结道，东方文化的综合思维 模式表现在人与自然的关系上就是人与自 然融为一体，人与其他动物都包括在这个 整体中。 中国古典文学作品中有很多描写人 与鸟兽心意相通的名句，如杜甫的“感时 花溅泪，恨别鸟惊心”，李商隐的“蓬山 此去无多路，青鸟殷勤为探看”，杜甫的 “水深鱼极乐，林茂鸟知归”则道出了小 动物回归大自然的快乐心情。可想而知， 诗里写到的河水一定是无污染的，树林也 水深鱼极乐 林茂鸟知归

必极茂盛，这就涉及到了生态环境。 东方的宗教如佛教就反对杀生和肉

球环境问题日益严峻，用什么手段

全

模式”。他接着指出，东方人对大自然的

食。季先生引用了“劝君莫打三春鸟，子

来改善和治理呢？常见的回答是

态度是同自然交朋友，了解自然，认识自

在巢中待母归”，来说明中国传统思想对

“依靠科学”，但季羡林先生认为此种观

然，在此基础上再向自然有所索取。“天

鸟兽表达出的怜悯和同情，他说这在西方

点实为“科学主义”的态度，他在与池田

人合一”就是这种态度在哲学上凝练的

的诗歌中是难以找到的。

大作和蒋忠新的对谈录《畅谈东方思维》

表述。

中指出：“西方的‘科学’绝对做不到这

“现代人的贪欲将会把珍贵的资源消

生说办法“就是以东方文化的综合思维模

一点。这等于是一个人自己揪住自己的头

耗殆尽，从而剥夺了后代的生存权。……

式济西方的分析思维模式之穷”，首先就

发想离开大地那样，是根本不可能的。”

工业革命以来，生产者放在第一位的目的

要按照以“天人合一”为主的哲学思维与

池田大作则认为，“全球规模的环境

是通过宣传来左右大众，使其欲望得到最

大自然交朋友，以“天人合一”论取代征

问题，是经济发展悬殊的扩大和贫困阶层

大限度的满足。而我们现在就应该将这个

服自然的想法和做法。

的增多以及人口、能源等等问题紧紧纠缠

顺序颠倒过来，要把抑制贪欲、厉行节俭

人类本就是自然之子。2000多年前

在一起的，极其复杂的问题群。”

放在第一位。”这是汤因比在《展望21世

的庄子就有了“物我一体”的思想，他诘

纪》中的观点。

问道：“万物一齐，孰短孰长？”结论

通过自己的观察和思考，季先生发现

50

如何拯救全球范围的环境问题？季先

东西方文化在处理人与自然关系方面是迥

季先生表示自己从汤因比博士在与池

是“以道观之，物无贵贱，以物观之，自

然有异的，甚至可说是“根本对立”的。

田大作的对话录中受到了启发，因为汤因

贵而相贱”。人类与天地万物是一体平等

西方的思想是征服自然，东方的思想主张

比指出了基督教以前的希腊和罗马的世界

的，理当与自然和谐相处。这才是根本的

与“自然万物浑然一体，其基础是综合的

观与佛教的“依正不二”接近和相似。池

济世之道。

China Economic Review | February 2014

看中国

欢迎光临 我更倾向中国餐厅高效务实的问安方式 文 | 晏格文 (Graham Earnshaw)

近

来我曾到访洛杉矶，期间深深体验

安。若将餐厅场景移换到英国，侍应生必

事实上，主要的不

了美国人（至少加州人）在与生

是简短小声地问道“先生您好吗？”，全

同在于中华餐厅用语的诚

人亲友迎来送往时所展现的真诚与热情，

然不在意对方的反应。

意不足仅体现在招待员

让我颇有感触。话说一日午间，我到餐厅

众人皆知，在日本料理店，侍应生必

身上。换言之，真正缺乏

用餐，位置恰巧靠近门口，一席饭让我见

须在客人进门后用力大喊“欢迎光临”，

热情和真诚的仅是餐厅人

识了侍应生如何招呼到店的客人，又是如

但这仅是为了制造气氛，对顾客是否回应

员，而顾客们含糊的回应

何引位。说实话，作为旁观者，我颇觉辛

完全不作要求。

却可能是出自真心。

那么中国的情况又如何呢？就一般餐

而在美国，主客双方

“你好！今天过得如何？！”每走进

厅而言，我们总希望能在入口处听见一排

均需配合地完成这种“伪

一名顾客，餐厅招待都会饱含热情地这般

身穿旗袍的女人齐声诵吟“欢迎光临”。

互动”，不管自己多么沮丧，面临多少问

高声问安。话语间就好像是遇见相识多年

虽说在意义表述上与日本相似，但却不必

题，当时的心情如何糟糕，却仍要表达出

的挚友，并发自内心地想了解对方心情如

慷慨激昂，同样亦不需要客人回应。

劳，更难以想象身处其中的感受。

何。事实上，餐厅招待与客人素不相识，

与美国文化形成强烈对比的是，中

更不是朋友，也不会在意对方的生活。但

日两国的餐厅招呼用语中均没有“你好

让我诧异的是，面对这样一个实属客套的

吗？”之类的内容。

晏格文

对生活巨大的满足—“我过得非常好！ 谢谢！！”。而事实上，双方的交流全属 言不由衷。 若从两者选其一，我绝对更倾向中国 餐厅这种高效务实的问安方式，至少可以

问题，每位客人却报以同样热情的回答，

在美国人对中、日国民的各类分析评

内容通常是“非常好”，当然我是指相当

论中，关于对方言辞客套有余、诚意不足

之好！

的指摘屡见不鲜。但就餐厅招呼用语的真

最后，我想和眼前的读者道一声祝

诚度而言，在我看来太平洋两岸的人民都

福，祝你们今天过得愉快，当然这是发自

略有不足，相比之下或许美国人更甚。

内心的。

或许是因为出生在英国的关系，我能 够想象英国人如何运用克制含糊的语调问

不用耗费那么多气力。

中国餐厅服务人员的问安方式更为高效务实

China Economic Review | February 2014

51

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50 Liangmaqiao Road, Chaoyang

Shanghai

agan@harrowbeijing.cn

Tel: +86 10 6468 8838

Tel: +86 21 6279 8660

Northwest Airlines Airport

mba@mbs-worldwide.ac.cn

Office www.nwa.com 32271 Passenger Terminal 2, Capital International Airport

Saint Paul American School

Tel: +86 010 6459 7827

www.stpaulschool.cn

Harris Corporate Services Ltd

KLM - Greater China Regional

18 Guan Ao Yuan, Longgang

www.harrissec.com.cn

Office

Shanghai Office

www.klm.com.cn

Tongji University SIMBA

100192

Suite 904, OOCL Plaza,

1609-1611 Kuntai International

A309 Sino-French Center, Tongji

PRC

841 Yan An Zhong Road,

Mansion, B12 Chaoyangmenwai

University, 1239 Siping Road

Tel: +86 137 1881 0084

Jing’An,

Avenue, Chaoyang, Beijing

Shanghai, PRC

spasadmissions@gmail.com

Shanghai, PRC

Tel: +86 10 5922 0747

Tel: +86 21 6598 0610

Shanghai

Tel: +86 21 6289 8813

Fax: +86 10 5879 7621

Fax: +86 21 6598 3540

Livingston American School

Fax:+86 21 6289 8816

Shanghai

China Europe Int’l Business

www.laschina.org

info.sh@harrissec.com.cn

Air France - Shanghai Office

School

580 Ganxi Road

Beijing Office

www.airfrance.com.cn

(CEIBS) MBA

Tel: +86 21 6238 3511

Room 2302, E-Tower, No.12

3901B Ciro’s Plaza

www.ceibs.edu

Fax:+86 21 5218 0390

Guanghua Road, Chaoyang,

388 Nanjing Road West

Tel: +86 21 2890 5555

Shanghai Community

Beijing, PRC

Tel: +86 21 6334 5702

Fax: +86 21 2890 5200

International School (Pudong

Tel: +86 10 6591 8087

mail.corporate.sha@airfrance.fr

admissions@ceibs.edu

Campus)

Shanghai Jiaotong-Euromed

www.scischina.org

Fax: +86 10 8599 9882

Business Schools

info.bj@harrissec.com.cn

Road Qinghe, Haidian, Beijing

Management AEMBA Program

800 Xiuyan Road, Kangqiao,

Guangzhou Office

Shanghai

(MBA/EMBA)

Pudong

Room D-E, 11/F, Yueyun

Fudan University - Washington

www.aemba.com.cn

Tel: +86 21 5812 9888

Building

University EMBA

Tel: +86 21 5230 1598

Fax:+86 21 5812 9000

3 Zhongshan 2nd Road

www.olin.wustl.edu/shanghai

Fax: +86 21 5230 3357

British International School

Guangzhou, PRC

(English)

aemba@sjtu.edu.cn

Shanghai - Pudong Campus

Tel: +86 20 8762 0508

www.fdms.edu.cn/olin (Chinese)

www.bisshanghai.com

International Schools

Fax: +86 20 3762 0543

Room 710, 670 Guoshun Road

info.gz@harrissec.com.cn

Shanghai, China, 200433

600 Cambridge Forest New Town, Lane 2729 Hunan Road,

Hong Kong Office

Tel: +86 21 5566 4788

Pudong

7/F, Hong Kong Trade Centre

Fax: +86 21 6565 4103

Tel: +86 21 5812 7455

161-167 Des Voeux Road Central

Hotels

Hong Kong, PRC Tel: +852 2541 6632

Shanghai

Fax: +852 2541 9339

Grand Mercure Hongqiao

info@harrissec.com.hk

Airlines

52

Harrow International School

Shanghai

Manchester Business School

Beijing

www.grandmercurehongqiao.com

Part-time Global MBA

www.harrowbeijing.cn

369 Xian Xia Road, Chang Ning

Beijing

http://china.portals.mbs.ac.uk

No. 5, 4th Block, Anzhenxili

Shanghai

Lufthansa German Airlines

Starts December 2013,

Chaoyang, Beijing 100029

Tel: +86 21 5153 3300

Beijing Office

Shanghai

PRC

Fax: +86 21 5153 3555

China Economic Review | February 2014

Real Estate/Commercial

reservation@

Hudson Recruitment

grandmercurehongqiao-shanghai.

(Shanghai) Co., Ltd.

Jing An Kerry Centre

www.savillsresidence.com

com

2302-2303, 2201-2206 Hongyi

www.jingankerrycentre.com

No. 1703, Lane 1883, Huamu

Starwood Asia Pacific Hotels

International Plaza, 288 Jiujiang

Unit 901, 9F, Tower 1

Road Pudong, Shanghai 201303,

& Resorts PTE. Ltd. Shanghai

Road, Shanghai

Jing An Kerry Centre

PRC

Office

Tel: +86 21 2321 7888

1515 Nanjing Road West

Tel: +86 21 5197 6688

www.starwoodhotels.com

shresume@hudson.com

Shanghai

info@savillsresidence.com

19/F Phase 1 Huanmao Building 999 Huaihai Road Central,

Savills Residence Century Park

China 200040

Language Schools

Tel: +86 21 6087 1515

Shanghai

Fax: +86 21 6087 1955

Tel: +86 21 6141 7799

Leasing Enquiries

Fax: +86 21 6391 8220

Tel: +86 21 6087 2499

The Leading Hotels of the

Tel: +86 21 6087 2488

World, Ltd. Shanghai Rep.

Real Estate/ Serviced Apartments

Office www.lhw.com

Park View Apartment wwww.parkview-sh.com

501A Shanghai Center, 1376

MandarinKing

Block 1-4, No. 888

Nanjing Road West, Shanghai

www.mandarinking.cn

Changning Road

Tel: +86 21 6279 8951

Shanghai

Shanghai, 200042

Fax: +86 21 6279 8952

No.555 West Nanjing Road,

Tel: +86 21 5241 8028

Room 1207 12th Floor, Plaza

leasing@parkview-sh.com

555 Shanghai, PRC

Lanson Place Central Park

HR/Recruitment Beijing

Course Inquiry: 400 618 6685

Beijing Deco Personal Services

Office Tel: +86 21 6209 1063

Oakwood Residence Funder

enquiry.lpcp@lansonplace.com

Ltd.

Office Tel: +86 21 6209 8671

Chengdu

Tower 23, Central Park

china.adecco.com

study@mandarinking.cn

www.Oakwood.com/reschengdu

No. 6 Chaoyangmenwai Avenue

No.7 Xin Xiwang Road, Wu Hou

Chaoyang, Beijing 100020

District, Chengdu

Tel: +86 10 8588 9588

D 9/F Tower II China Central Place, 79 Jianguo Road,

PR Agencies

Residences

Chaoyang, Beijing

Ketchum Newscan Public

Tel: +86 28 8535 6666

Fax: +86 10 8588 9599

Tel: +86 010 5920 4320

Relations

reserve.resfunderchengdu@

Shanghai

Fax: +86 010 5920 4322

www.ketchum.com

oakwoodasia.com

Lanson Place Jin Qiao Serviced

beijing.cn@adecco.com

Shanghai

Residences

Guangdong

218 Tianmu Road West

enquiry.lpjq@lansonplace.com

Levin Human Resources

Tel: +86 21 6353 2288

No. 27 & 28, Lane 399 Zao

Development (Guangzhou) Ltd.

Fax: +86 21 6353 2276

Zhuang Road, Pudong, Shanghai

www.levin.com.hk

Beijing

Tel: +86 21 5013 3888

V15 4/F Goldlion Digital Network

A6, Chaoyangmenwai Avenue

Center, 138 Tiyu Road East,

Chaoyang

Tianhe, Guangzhou, Guangdong

Tel: +86 10 5907 0055

Tel: +86 020 2886 0665

Fax: +86 10 5907 0188

Belvedere Service Apartments

Fax: +86 020 3878 1801

Ogilvy Group

www.belvedere.com.cn

info@levin.com.hk

www.ogilvy.com

Belvedere Service Apartments

Shanghai

Beijing

833 Changning Road, Shanghai

ADP China

9/F Huali Building, 58 Jinbao

200050

30/F Golden Bell Plaza, 98

Street, Dongcheng

Tel: +86 21 6213 2222

Huaihai Road Central, Shanghai

Tel: +86 10 8520 6000

Fax: +86 21 6251 0000

Tel: +86 021 2326 7999

Fax: +86 10 8520 6060

leasing@belvedere.com.cn

Real Estate/ Business Park

China Economic Review | February 2014

53

LISTING Sandhill Plaza

Gulou District

WUHAN

www.sandhillplaza.cn

SHANGHAI (21 LOCATIONS)

Regus Wuhan Tiandi –

2290 Zuchongzhi Rd, Zhangjiang

Regus Plaza 66

Corporate Centre 5

Hi-Tech Park, Shanghai 201303

15/F, Tower 2, Plaza 66,

8F, Wuhan Tiandi – Corporate

Tel: +86 21 6075 2555

No.1266, West Nanjing Road,

Center 5, No. 1628 Zhong Shan

Leasing@sandhill.cn

Jing’an District

Avenue

Shenyang

Regus One Corporate Avenue

Jiang’an District

Shenyang International

BEIJING (12 LOCATIONS)

15/F One Corporate Avenue

Apollo Business Center

Software Park

Regus China World Tower 3

222 Hubin Road

Apollo Huaihai Center [New]

No.860-1 Shangshengou,

15/F China World Tower 3,

Luwan District

4/F, Fuxing Commercial Building

Dongling, Shenyang City,

1 Jianguomenwai Avenue

Regus Jin Mao Tower

139 Ruijin Road (No.1)

Liaoning Province, 110167

Chaoyang District

31/F Jin Mao Tower

Huangpu, Shanghai

Tel: +86 24 8378 0500

CHENDU (3 LOCATIONS)

88 Shiji Avenue

Tel: 021-6136-6088

Fax: +86 24 8378 0528

Regus Yanlord Landmark

Lujiazui, Pudong

Apollo Flagship Center

36/F, Yanlord Landmark Office

Regus One Prime

Apollo Building

Tower

25 F, One Prime

1440 Yan’an Road (M)

No.1, Section 2, Renmin South

No. 360, Wu Jin Road,

Jing’an, Shanghai

Road

Hongkou District,

Tel: 021-6133-1888

Jinjiang District

SHENZHEN (5 LOCATIONS)

Apollo Tomson Center

CHONGQING

Regus Futian NEO

22/F, Tomson Commercial

Regus Yangtze River

44/F, NEO Tower A

Building

International Plaza

6011 Shennan Avenue

710 Dongfang Road

Real Estate/HOPSCA

33/F Yangtze River International

Futian District

Pudong, Shanghai

Shanghai Jiatinghui Property

Plaza

Regus New World Centre

Tel: 021-6165-2288

Development Co., Ltd

22 Nanbin Road

(NEW)

Apollo Xuhui Center

www.antinganting.com.cn

Nanan District

23/F, New World Center,

16/F, Feidiao International Building

Life Hub @ Anting No 1033

DALIAN

No. 6009, Yitian Road,

1065 Zhaojiabang Road

Moyu Rd S, Anting, Shanghai

Regus Dalian World Trade

Futian District

Xuhui, Shanghai

Tel: +86 21 6950 2255

Center

SUZHOU

Tel: 021-5158-1688

Fax: +86 21 6950 2833

12/F, 25 Tongxing Street

Regus Suzhou JinHope plaza

Apollo Hongqiao Center

jean.liu@chongbang.com

Zhongshan District

(COMING SOON)

26/F, New Town Center Building

GUANGZHOU (5 LOCATIONS)

11/F, Tower2, Jin Hope Plaza

83 Loushanguan Road

Regus G.T. Land Plaza (NEW)

88 Hua Chi Street, SIP

Changning, Shanghai

The Executive Centre

12/F, Tower A, Phase 1

TIANJIN (2 LOCATIONS)

Tel: 021-3133-2688

Shanghai

G.T. Land Plaza, No. 85

Regus Tianjin Centre

International Finance Centre

Huacheng Avenue

8/F Tianjin Centre

Level 8, International Finance

Tian He District

No.219 Nanjing Road

Center, 8 Century Avenue

HANGZHOU (4 LOCATIONS)

Heping District

CITIC Square

Regus Euro American Centre

Level 35, CITIC Square, 1168

4/F Euro America Center

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