CER May 2014 by Seana Liu

Q&A: China still "gambling on stupid" in stock markets

MAY 2014 VOL. 25, NO. 5

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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 Greg Isaacson, Skye Sun, Sunny Oh, Sean Lee 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

04 PROFITS AND PROTECTION | Principles and lost opportunities weigh on the minds of Hong Kong’s IPO rule makers

MONTH IN REVIEW 06 NEWS BRIEF | The biggest China news stories in April

Q&A AND COLUMNS 08 CHINA IS STILL “GAMBLING ON STUPIDITY” IN THE STOCK MARKETS | An expert discusses financial reform

10 REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS | Beijing is likely to take only modest steps to reform in 2014

12 ESCAPING NOSTALGIA | A chat with Shanghai Tang about building a luxury Chinese fashion brand

14 A DELICATE BALANCE | The tradeoff for growth

COVER STORY 16 CHANGE OF DIRECTION | China takes a dubious shortcut onto the global financial market

ECONOMICS & POLICY 22 GDP PANGS | Trying to decipher the meaning and significance of the growth figures for China’s economy is no easy task

24 EXPORT SLOWDOWN | Trade data disappoints again 25 CHINA’S CRUMBLING HOUSING | A serious problem with roots in a growth model that has run its course

26 CONFLICT CROPS | Rising tensions in Ukraine flag risks for Beijing’s grain import policy

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28 WALKING THE WALK | Insights from a property tycoon on

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30 AFFORDABLE ART | Is art for the middle classes the next big consumer trend in China?

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33 SURGING AHEAD | China’s first batch of IPO stocks in over a year have skyrocketed

THE HOUSE VIE W

Profits and protection Principles and lost opportunities weigh on the minds of Hong Kong’s IPO rule makers

harles Li, the chief executive of the company that runs the Hong Kong stock exchange, can’t seem to drop the Alibaba topic. As the company gears up for its US$15 billion listing in New York, Li has re-opened the discussion on why the tech giant didn’t make the offering in his city and how the Hong Kong exchange can avoid missing out on major IPOs again in the future. The debate comes down to whether Hong Kong should change its listing rules to capture demand for IPOs from the growing number of technology firms from the mainland. Or should it stand firm and stick with a widely respected principle that protects investors? Last year, Alibaba officially announced that it was seeking a public listing. Hong Kong and New York, popular with Chinese firms that float overseas, duked it out for the business. With estimates valuing the company at around US$140 billion, the prize at stake is lucrative. But the listing comes with strings attached. Alibaba’s 28 partners, who hold 1013% of the company according to various estimates, want to retain the right to appoint managers and retain its partnership structure. They say this is vital to protect the long-term strategy and vision that they have for the company. This is incompatible with Hong Kong’s “one shareholder, one vote” principle that is designed to protect public investors through equality of ownership. Talks between the two parties to fit Alibaba’s request fell apart last September. In late October, Nasdaq and the New York Stock

BIG TRADE: The Hong Kong Stock Exchange must continue to protect investors, but it also needs to be able to win the biggest IPOs

Exchange both said they would allow it. Hong Kong was right not to alter its rules for the sake of one company. In a region full of complex, opaque ownership structures and boardrooms where investor rights are a secondary consideration, the city has a valuable reputation for reliability. Giving in to Alibaba would have set a dangerous precedent for other similarly important rules to be changed for firms looking to list there. Rushing the consultation process to ensure Alibaba’s IPO took place in Hong Kong would have given off the harmful perception that the city was willing to drop due process and financial regulations to attract big business. Worse, regulators could get entangled in a “race to the bottom,” Syren Johnstone, a Hong Kong University law professor, told China Economic Review in March after Aliba-

To massage the economy, Beijing opts for a lighter touch China will be mired in a period of ambiguous and unending reform until governments central and local bin the GDP targets that have forced the country to grow at excessive rates for more than a decade, Hu Shuli, the inﬂuential editor of business magazine Caixin, wrote in an editorial in March. That day is a long way off. The central government has ﬁxed a GDP target of 7.5% for this year and as economic data continue to disappoint

China Economic Review | May 2014

and defaults emerge in sensitive sectors such as housing, chances are increasing that nervous policymakers will try to spend their way to reach that goal. The tone for 2014 is strikingly similar to last year. At a meeting with provincial leaders in early April, Premier Li Keqiang said economic growth must remain in an “appropriate zone,” which analysts have pegged at above 7% annual GDP growth. The phrasing

is different but the significance is the same as Li’s “bottom line” in 2013, an undeclared floor believed to be 7% that couldn’t be fallen through. It’s clear that ambitious reform will subdue GDP growth while rapid expansion will edge out hopes for restructuring the way China’s economy runs. How the premier will proceed to balance financial and market reforms with economic growth in the medium term is up for debate.

THE HOUSE VIE W

ba’s decision. But Hong Kong is in a precarious position. Its economy is heavily reliant on financial services, an industry in which it is super-competitive; for four of the past five years, it has been the world’s largest IPO market, according to Dealogic. A sign of its pulling power are the big upcoming billiondollar listings of retailer Watson and pork producer WH Group. Yet while it can win large conventional businesses, as well as huge commodity trades thanks to its proximity to mainland China, many people including Charles Li and investment bankers fear it is missing out on the most lucrative IPO trend – tech stocks. Such firms excite investors and often attract massive valuations. Main-

The likelihood this year of a major stimulus package on par with the US$586 billion monster in 2009 is low – practically impossible, some analysts say. Even if the government could muster the money this year, it would undermine all conﬁdence in the reform promises made by China’s new leaders. Beijing will no doubt engage in some “ﬁne tuning” of the economy in 2014. The question now is what areas

land China rivals Silicon Valley in churning out the biggest tech firms in the world by number of users. However, despite Chinese firms’ preference for Hong Kong, tech companies have tended to list in New York. Since 2009, nine of the 10 biggest IPOs by Chinese internet companies have been in the US, according to Dealogic. Tencent is the only big Chinese tech firm listed in Hong Kong. If Hong Kong cannot adjust, it stands to lose out in the new economy, some critics argue. It is already under pressure from the US, which has allowed dual-class and other share structures for almost two decades. Furthermore, the central government in Beijing wants to turn Shanghai into a global financial hub, which will in-

will be stimulated and what industries will feel the touch. In several places, efforts to pull the economy out of an early rut are already well underway. State spending is already ﬂowing into the economy; last year’s target stimulus wasn’t announced in a single statement or pushed through in one transaction. It is already clear that this year will be the same unless the situation escalates out of control. On the policy side, this is a much

evitably come at the expense of Hong Kong. Much of the city’s IPO business is from mainland Chinese companies. The city needs to move forward. As Charles Li noted, “inaction [on this issue] appears to have helped nobody in Hong Kong, but it does hurt Hong Kong’s competitiveness in attracting new economy companies.” He claims that investors in the US have not been negatively affected by the unconventional ownership structures of Google and Facebook. Hong Kong, he writes, could adopt special rules to give tech companies the structures they request. But Li’s argument ignores what opponents of change cite as their biggest concern: Investor protection. US investors can hold misbehaving firms to account through class action lawsuits. Hong Kong’s Common Law system does not allow for this. It is too expensive for ordinary retail investors in the city to seek redress by themselves as they must pay for lawsuits upfront. Changes to the legal system haven’t been part of the dialogue. Li is correct to call for a “more rational and open discussion about weighted voting rights and our [Hong Kong’s] future competitiveness.” But reforms to the system cannot be limited to the securities industry alone. A much larger framework meant to protect investors, including judicial reform, must be included in that effort if Hong Kong wants to be on par with New York. The city cannot cut itself off from a huge new market for IPOs, but neither can it abandon its principle in pursuit of profit. Now is the time to let the talks start.

lighter touch than in the past. But major stimulus may not just be undesirable, it could be infeasible. “The scale of the credit expansion over the past few years has been so large that delivering a renewed acceleration in credit growth would require increasingly implausible volumes of new lending,” GaveKal Dragonomics said in a report. In 2014, “ﬁne tuning” could be the government’s only option to keep growth on track.

China Economic Review | May 2014

NEWS ROUNDUP

MONTH IN REVIEW ECONOMY

China posted better-than-expected first quarter GDP growth of 7.4%, according to official data. But it was a slowdown from 7.7% growth in the final quarter of last year. Other data released showed industrial output rising 8.8% in March from one year ago. Last year, China set its growth target for 2014 at 7.5%. China’s growth data is closely watched around the world. A slowdown could hurt Asian economies, especially those which export commodities and industrial components to the world’s secondlargest economy.

ment’s campaign to reduce industrial overcapacity and pollution. Hebei is the country’s biggest steelmaking region. China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange is relaxing some currency controls for multinational companies, The Wall Street Journal reported. The new rules, which expand on a trial program started in December 2012, would allow domestic and foreign firms with at least US$100 million in foreign-exchange income in the past year to transfer capital more freely. China for years has maintained a “closed” capital account, strictly controlling the movement of money in and out of the country. SAFE said the latest move will take effect June 1.

BRIGHT DAWN: Historically, the H-share market has outperformed its mainland counterpart

from China’s main stock exchange in seven years, an action seen as a signal of Beijing’s intent to improve its stock market, cut financial risks and reduce industrial overcapacity. Nanjing Tanker’s stock will be removed from the bourse in mid-May.

Economic growth in China’s Hebei province slowed to 4.2% in the first quarter from 9.2% a year earlier as its steel industry took a hit from newly introduced pollution curbs, Bloomberg reported. The central government has ordered many of Hebei’s polluting steel factories to reduce capacity, in effect, closing them down. The slowdown in Hebei’s expansion underscores the impact of the govern-

The China Securities Regulatory Commission has announced a list of 28 companies that have disclosed IPO plans, suggesting the regulator is ready to end a two-month pause on new-share sales, The Wall Street Journal reported. Beijing ended a 14-month-long moratorium on initial public offerings in January, allowing 48 companies to list in the first two months of this year. But the new issues halted abruptly in March, when authorities stopped granting approvals. The Shanghai Stock Exchange will delist Nanjing Tanker after four consecutive years of losses, The Wall Street Journal reported. The moneylosing state-run shipping business will become the first company delisted

Credit: Thangaraj Kumaravel

Credit: Payton Chung

FINANCE

China announced a trial program to allow cross-market stock trading by mainland and Hong Kong investors, The Wall Street Journal reported. The program will allow mainland investors to buy up to US$1.7 billion (RMB 10.5 billion) a day of shares

CHINA BY NUMBERS Number of public infrastructure projects opened to private investment

80 06

China Economic Review | May 2014

2 Percentage point cut in the RRR for rural commercial banks

Bond program set up by Tencent

RMB49,287

US$5 bln

Average price of premium housing in Beijing in Q1 per square meter

of selected companies listed in Hong Kong, while permitting Hong Kong investors to plow up to US$2.1 billion a day into A-shares. The move is also designed to push forward the internationalization of the yuan.

POLITICS & SOCIETY

urbanization on its food supplies, with the aim of maintaining selfsufficiency and reducing its dependence on grain imports amid soaring demand. The report blamed agricultural production and other “human activities” for the contamination, which it said had been accumulated over the long term. The ministry said China is working on a series of measures to help resolve the problem of soil pollution. Japanese shipping line Mitsui OSK paid US$28 million to the Shanghai Maritime Court to free an ore carrier impounded in a dispute that dates back to the Second World War, Financial Times reported. The ship had been ferrying Australian iron ore to China’s flagship steel mill Baosteel. The Chinese foreign ministry called the case “a common commercial contract dispute.” For many years, China discouraged wartime claims by its citizens against Japan, but no longer does so amid escalating tensions between the two countries.

of Lanzhou. Benzene, a cancerinducing chemical, had been found in tap water supplied by the firm at 20 times above national safety levels, forcing the city to turn off supplies in one district and warn other residents not to drink tap water for the next 24 hours. State-run China National Radio quoted a Lanzhou government spokesman saying “there were supervision problems within Veolia Water Company related to water quality and safety.” Veolia said it had no benzene and was helping to search for the source of the chemical.

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NEWS ROUNDUP

Credit: Soil Science

BUSINESS

Up to 16% of China’s soil is heavily contaminated, Reuters reported, citing survey results released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection. China is desperate to tackle the impact of rapid industrialization and

20% Size of stake cinema company IMAX sold to Chinese investors

Weibo, the microblogging service owned by Beijing-based Sina, jumped 19% in its first day of trading after pricing its IPO at the low end of the marketed range. The shares climbed US$3.24 to US$21.24 in New York on April 18, after they were priced at US$17 each. Weibo, which also counts Alibaba Group among its backers, raised US$285.6 million in the IPO. The stock was trading at US$19.21 per share at market close on April 25. Chinese authorities blamed French utility Veolia Environnement for dangerous levels of benzene in the tap water in the northwestern city

Number of cars BMW said it was planning to recall in China

232,000

US beverage giant Coca-Cola’s reported revenue for the first quarter beat expectations, driven in part by sales in China, Reuters reported. Coke does not break out China sales separately, but it said global case volumes rose 2% in the quarter, while those in China rose 12% due to increased marketing and advertising around the Chinese New Year. In 2013, the Asia-Pacific region accounted for 13% of the company’s overall sales. Coke plans to invest US$8 billion in China over the five years through 2017 as it focuses on emerging markets to boost revenue.

7,000 Visitors came to the Monet exhibition in Shanghai on opening weekend

Increase in China sales for Yum! Brands in Q1

9% China Economic Review | May 2014

Q&A: PROBLEMS WITH A-SHARES

China is still “gambling on stupidity” in the stock markets

hina’s capital markets reopened to IIPOs this year after a 114-month hiatus but the p process has been chaootic, further entrenchiing investor skepticism oof A-shares. In an intervview with China EcoZhou Chunsheng n nomic Review, Zhou Chunsheng, a professor C of finance at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing, gives his thoughts on the challenges in building a functioning system. First, before regulators can successfully push through real reform, investors will have to, among other things, stop “betting on stupid,” which, as Zhou describes, is a quick race to the bottom. Looking at the way the mainland market has performed since IPOs restarted in January, how would you appraise its performance? What has changed? Frankly, I’m not very positive on the performance of the capital markets in China. China set up the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets more than 20 years ago but the two markets didn’t do well. From a financing perspective, sometimes they say ‘no refinancing, no IPOs because we have to stabilize the secondary market.’ But on the other hand, especially retail investors, most of them lost money for a long time, for years. Possibly, you can make more money by investing in financial products from banks. Do you think pausing IPOs for a year has had a positive impact on the market? I don’t think so. They shouldn’t do that: Pause then reopen. The market 08

China Economic Review | May 2014

“We call that a trust problem. It’s a social issue in China. It’s not just a stock market issue in China. It’s a social phenomenon that exists in the whole society. It exists in food safety issues. We have fake medicines” can make its own decision. Now it’s a bear market, it’s going down. So I will not try to IPO now. I will wait. If the capital markets in China are really market oriented, investors, enterprises and corporations, they can make their own correct decisions. The CSRC may think that if the market is in a downward trend then we must help the market by reducing the amount of financing, such as pausing IPOs or slowing down IPOs. Part of it was trying to improve liquidity in the market as well, right? Yes. Some investors say, ‘Well the CSRC is making the right decision because they are trying to stabilize the market.’ I don’t think this kind of policy works in the long run. Why? When you say we suspended or pause IPOs, in the future you have to reopen it. This will bring some negative impact to the market. Is the CSRC sending signals that they are preparing for a registration-based IPO system? From my

perspective, it seems like regulation has been increased on some of the latest listings. Possibly, you are right. They say, in the future we will change the IPO system to a registration system. This is market oriented reform. But right now the CSRC is not doing that, for whatever reason. What do you think some of those reasons are? The CSRC, in China, this is a government agency. So, [CSRC head] Xiao Gang [and other leaders], they have quite a few vice chairmen or vice presidents or whatever. They are all government officials. They pay a lot of attention to the comments of their bosses. So there’s a bureaucracy problem? Yes. Also, they pay attention to the investors as well, to cater to the preferences of investors’ short-term needs. So as the CSRC transitions toward the registration-based system – and they have said they will do this... That’s true. They have said they plan to do this. So what kind of obstacles will the CSRC run into as they try to do this? You’ve already mentioned one, which is bureaucracy. Are there others? Sure. I think before we do that we have to strengthen our legal system, and the trust of the people, the investors, in the system. Even in the current situation, the market is highly regulated by the CSRC, but there are still a lot of wrongdoings by investors, inside trading or whatever. Also we know that accounting information of public companies is

Q&A: PROBLEMS WITH A-SHARES

making very good progress in many aspects. But these kinds of issues, we need more time to deal with this. Okay. So my final question is about how, when people talk about the implementation of a registrationbased system, there needs to be a legal follow-up to that. That’s true.

LET DOWN: Zhou says that Chinese regulators take a selective approach to enforcement of mainland companies, many of which have disappointed investors

not that reliable, even though the CSRC tries to improve the quality. We try to improve the quality of information disclosure but after so many years it’s still a serious problem. That’s why there are many people who say, ‘Chinese investors are very speculative. Why?’ Because they don’t trust the public companies. There’s a Chinese word called ‘bosha.’ I’ll explain: I’m an idiot but you are an idiot as well. So I bought a bad stock but I can pass it to you at a higher price. Then I can make money [even though it was a bad investment to start with] … It means to gamble on stupidity, or someone being stupider than you. Interesting phrase. Has any progress been made in dealing with these kinds of problems? Sure. I think the CSRC has made some progress. But we call that a trust [problem]. It’s a social issue in China. It’s not just a stock market issue in China. It’s a social phenomenon that exists in the whole society. It exists in food safety issues. We have fake medications. We can also see this kind of issue in the stock market. If we cannot solve this issue... I mean, these

issues exist everywhere, in Hong Kong and the US and London stock exchange. But it’s not so widespread. I think in China the situation is more serious. If we cannot solve this, if we cannot improve the quality of information disclosure, if we cannot effectively punish the wrongdoings in the stock market, then the stock market in China will not perform very well, will not be trusted by long-term investors. That’s why many measures that have been taken by the CSRC have not been very effective. Because they have not solved the fundamental problem. And this is a cultural problem? Well, it’s related to culture but I strongly believe that it’s related to the whole legal system and enforcement of the law. Sometimes, in China, [for example] I know you. You are the regulator or you have the power. I won’t catch you; I’ll catch someone else. We call that ‘selective enforcement.’ You know what I’m saying. This is a social issue. So the reform of the Chinese stock market is closely related to the reform of our social system, our legal system. We are making progress. We are

Because if you suddenly give a list of requirements, and any company can list as long as they meet those requirements, then there needs to be a strong legal follow-up. So the question is: How coordinated is capital markets reform with legal reform? Is there strong coordination right now? I should say there is coordination right now but I don’t believe the coordination is so strong. CSRC is a government agency. It only takes care of the capital market. It’s not very powerful in the bureaucratic system. The Supreme Court and the People’s Congress, of course they are much more powerful. So I guess we have to make good preparations before we do this kind of thing, or else some companies will cook up their numbers, saying they make a lot of profit and that they have a very good business model. They encourage investors to buy their stocks and then they take the money away. China has such a huge population. China has millions of companies. Do you know the number of companies in China? I have no idea. What’s the number? If we count all the companies, including small and micro businesses, we have possibly 30 million businesses or enterprises. This number is bigger than the population of some European countries. That’s why China is somehow different from other countries. Such a large population. Such a large number of businesses. That’s why it’s very difficult for regulators to monitor all of them and for investors to get to know them. So you can imagine that if we switched to the registration system, it’s very difficult … This is possibly the correct way to go but it takes time. China Economic Review | May 2014

Q&A : CHINA’S ECONOMY

Reasonable expectations The Chinese government understands the obstacles to growth posed by vested interests but progress on reform in 2014 is likely to be modest at best

ecent economic data have troubled markets aand analysts about the d direction of the Chin nese economy. China Economic Review ccaught up with Bill A Adams, senior internattional economist at USBill Adams b based PNC Financial Services Group and coS author of the book “In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define China’s Ascent in the Next Decade,” to get his thoughts. Q1 GDP data show China’s economy continues to slow. Do you believe lower growth rates give the government more room to push through with rebalancing? China’s slower growth in the first quarter is a direct consequence of steps that the government has already taken to address some of the imbalances in the economy. We’ve seen a big slowdown in investment activity, in part because of direct controls on the quantity of credit growth, but also because of more market-determined interest rates, which are higher interest rates and have dampened the rate of credit growth. So five or 10 years ago, everyone was talking about how China needed more market-determined cost of capital to make investment more efficient over the long run. And now we’re starting to see some of the financial reforms necessary for that to happen come into place. Where do you stand on the debate over whether Beijing should roll out more stimulus measures to meet growth targets? My read of Chinese economic policy right now comes from the premier’s effectively forward guidance out of 10

China Economic Review | May 2014

the [Government] Work Report at the National People’s Congress. As long as growth is strong enough to maintain full employment, the government does not see a need for a substantial stimulus program. And looking at the latest wage growth data which were released with the first-quarter GDP report, it looks like China’s wage growth is reflecting a still relatively tight labor market, meaning a labor market that’s close to full employment. So I think the pace of growth that China’s experiencing right now is sufficient from the government’s perspective. The concern for China in 2014 is not so much the pace of growth, but uncertainty over the resolution of the excessive credit growth during the years immediately following the global recession. The Chinese leadership has promised to allow a more “decisive” role for market forces in the economy. Is this commitment sincere, and if so, are there possible dangers to this approach? I think Chinese policymakers understand the obstacles to growth posed by vested interests in the Chinese economy and system, so the analysis is there. But how exactly to go about changing the system is very complicated. The other thing to say about it is that it’s quite possible that one consequence of China’s current anticorruption drive, which is coming down especially hard on state-owned enterprises and sectors of the economy that are heavily regulated, could be opening those sectors to more participation by privately owned participants. Premier Li Keqiang recently called for reform of the state-owned enterprise sector to allow more private capital investment. How

urgent is the need for liberalization of private investment, and how far will Beijing allow private investors to go? China’s private sector has provided most of the country’s new jobs since the turn of the century. But for the last few years, an appreciating currency has meant that privately owned export-oriented manufacturers in labor-intensive sectors have been struggling, if not declining. And regulatory barriers make it difficult for private entrepreneurs to set up businesses that capitalize on domestic market opportunities in the way that they built factories to capitalize on robust foreign demand prior to the Great Recession. The Chinese government has pledged to allow a large role for market forces in sectors that are dominated by state-owned firms, but this pledge has been made many times before and the reality has historically fallen short of the promise. The most reasonable expectations for the liberalization of heavily regulated sectors in 2014 would be modest ones. China’s weak manufacturing PMI worries many analysts. Given that manufacturing makes up only 41% of China’s economy today, while the service sector accounts for 49%, do you think this focus on factory production as a gauge of China’s economic health is missing the point? The manufacturing PMIs are excellent indicators: They monitor an important sector, they are reported in a consistent and easily interpreted way, and they trend with China’s overall business cycle. Now, in 2014, defaults on loans made during the years after the Great Recession, when credit rained from the sky in China, are the bigger risk to the economy. But Chinese data on

Q&A: CHINA’S ECONOMY

defaults and debt restructuring isn’t as timely or comprehensive as data on growth, so economists are forced to track the problem through other means. How will a scarcity of natural resources impact the success of China’s transition or rebalancing to a service and consumer economy? When we talk about China’s rebalancing to a more sustainable model of growth, we are usually talking about a transition to an economy that is more directed toward consumer demand and less reliant on exports or ever-rising property prices. A more consumer-oriented economy is sustainable in the sense that growth is less likely to be interrupted by an asset bubble collapsing or a global recession, but it would not necessarily be less resource-intensive. Think about it – what would the Chinese economy make if it were

more oriented toward domestic consumer demand? What do Chinese consumers want more of? Bigger houses, new cars, roads to drive their cars on, and electronic devices to play with while they are stuck in traffic – resource-intensive stuff. Beyond headline economic and industrial data, what else should our readers look out for when trying to understand the direction of the Chinese economy? Today, hundreds of millions of Chinese people live middle class lifestyles, but lack access to the clean air, clean water, safe food, and other amenities that middle class consumers in most developed countries take for granted. I am watching for the growth of industries to fill in Chinese consumer demand for these things that China’s breakneck growth has so far not delivered.

Could you speak about your current areas of research and interest regarding the Chinese economy? What are you currently working on that you think is important? I’ve recently been looking at the global links in China’s food supply chain. Whenever trade with China comes up in conversation in the US, Americans tend to lament that everything we buy is made in China, but China doesn’t need anything that the US makes – not realizing that one-fifth of the feed grain used to raise Chinese pork, chicken and beef is imported, or that the US is one of China’s biggest grain suppliers. This international dimension is why pork prices are always the first part of the Chinese CPI basket to shoot up during a spike in global inflation: Pork is raised on feed grain, much of it imported, and so the cost structure of producing it follows global price trends that Beijing doesn’t control.

China Economic Review | May 2014

Q & A : B U I L D I N G A LU X U RY C H I N E S E B R A N D

Escaping nostalgia A chat with Shanghai Tang about building a luxury Chinese fashion brand

uxury fashion is about gaining acceptance; what you wear and how you wear it is a projection of who you are as a person and how you want to be seen. The garments that fill your wardrobe are therefore heavily influenced by your social circle. Getting a professional office worker in Shanghai to sport a mandarin collar instead of necktie is no easy task – no matter how premium the product on offer. The mandarin collar is low, unfolded and can be buttoned to fit snugly around the neck, conjuring the image of a Qing dynasty scholar. For less conspicuous wear, it can be unfastened into a V-neck as Raphael le Masne De Chermont, executive chairman of Shanghai Tang, a Hong Kong-based clothing company, prefers to wear it. Since the mid-1990s, Shanghai Tang has been known for its apparel with a strikingly traditional Chinese influence. For the past several years, however, as it bids for the attention of wealthy Chinese consumers who disdain dragons on their jackets, the brand is remaking its image with a far lighter Chinese touch. The change in ideology is not without its challenges. De Chermont refuses to wear neckties and demands that others take theirs off. “It’s the leash of the corporate animal,” he says on the sidelines of a luxury brand forum in Shanghai on March 22, before exhorting this reporter to unknot his own. As an ideological statement, Shanghai Tang does not sell neckties despite the huge mainland market for them. The decidedly Chinese collar isn’t just about comfort or fashion. It’s a cultural statement, playing ever so slightly on the sentiments of the country’s illustrious past while also hoping to sidestep the twinge of unpleasant moments in history. The brand is positioned at a 12

China Economic Review | May 2014

“We are not nostalgic. We are not going back. Some people think Shanghai Tang is all qipao, all changshan. It’s not ... “I dress in Shanghai Tang every day.” confluence of national and fashionable confidence in China – whether it wants to be or not. Finding equal footing on this untrodden ground will be a challenge for De Chermont as the brand looks to capture a growing share of sales from mainlanders, of whom few today dare flaunt a mandarin collar. Don’t dwell too long on the traditional Chinese elements of the brand, the chairman says. De Chermont’s pitch to the world as Shanghai Tang expands on the mainland and abroad is that the company sits at the forefront of “Chinese chic,” a representative of all that’s new in Chinese fashion, not a throwback to the past. “We are not nostalgic. We are not going back. Some people think Shanghai Tang is all qipao, all changshan. It’s not,” he says, referring to two traditional Chinese outfits. The qipao is an embroidered vest worn by women; a changshan is a long button-up shirt once commonly sported by men in imperial China. “I dress in Shanghai Tang every day.” He couldn’t always, though. When Swiss holding company Compagnie Financiere Richemont, which also boasts the likes of Dunhill and Piaget in its stable of luxury brands, took over the company in 1998 from Hong Kong tailor and businessman David Tang,

De Chermont said Shanghai Tang was unsuitable for casual wear. The design looked like something out of ancient China. “Everything was too costumey. It was like Western people dressing like Chinese,” he said. Chinese cringed at the sight; many were embarrassed to even set foot in the shops. At the time, the brand’s main customers were tourists passing through Hong Kong. Though finely crafted, Shanghai Tang’s shirts and jackets carried little more than souvenir value. An advertisement from the 1990s shows a blonde-headed Westerner suspended midair in a kungfu-style kick, his Shanghai Tang jacket flying back behind him. De Chermont has taken the brand far beyond those days; besides the mandarin collar, his dark blue coat has nominal Chinese influence. Still, the past is hard to ignore, especially for a company that calls itself China’s first – and possibly only – luxury brand. European luxury brands often tout their heritage, and Shanghai Tang, established in 1994 by Tang, traces its style to the vibrant metropolis of the 1930s after which it is named. De Chermont described the Shanghai of that era as a colorful party where Eastern culture and fashion were running head on with the West. At the time, the city was carved up into concessions overseen by various imperial powers. Many Chinese citizens were relegated to a small, poor area of the city but within the concessions an elite, international crowd enjoyed a lifestyle on par with London or Paris; the decadence was so full-on that Shanghai acquired the unfortunate nickname of “Whore of the Orient” among party–loving Europeans. A burgeoning tailor business catered to the upper class and con-

Q & A : B U I L D I N G A LU X U RY C H I N E S E B R A N D

centrated the most talented stitching knowhow in the country within city limits. That ended abruptly with the communist takeover in 1949. “No more party; no more equality in the way you express yourself,” De Chermont says. The tailors fled to Britishcontrolled Hong Kong as refugees and formed a tailors’ guild that, in some form, has survived among their sons and grandsons. David Tang was one of them. De Chermont estimates that Shanghai Tang employs up to 70% of those descendents today, giving the brand a strong claim to the legacy of China’s tailoring prowess. The 1930s were an indisputably robust era for the city. Yet some Chinese historians refer to that time as being an important part of China’s “century of humiliation.” That is a dilemma for the brand: Its heritage and the foundations of its style are rooted in a period of time that, in history books and in the heart of the country’s elder generation, is synonymous with ignominy. Shanghai Tang is trying to break away from notions such as these while at the same time retaining its story and heritage. “China was not confident for a while,” De Chermont says. “They are

the big players of the economy and will soon be the first. They have a lot to catch up. They don’t want people to remind them of their misery in the past.” When asked if Chinese people want Chinese characteristics in their clothing, he responds with an unhesitant “no.” Perhaps the brand’s slogan “Reorient yourself” is also its business model. Shanghai Tang is doing well at ditching the past and in the same step attracting Chinese shoppers. In 2010, only 9% of sales came from mainland customers, according to figures provided by De Chermont. In 2013, that share had jumped to 22%. The gain in Chinese buyers comes at a crucial period for luxury brands on the mainland. China’s central government began clamping down on conspicuous consumption among party officials at the end of 2012 and the effects on international luxury brands that dominate the luxury segment have been profound. Bain & Co said luxury sales slowed from 12% annual growth in 2012 to just 2% last year; 2014 will likely see a similar slowdown. Shanghai Tang has relished the backlash against graft, however. “It’s very good for us. We’re growing very fast. Much faster since the corruption

NOT INTERESTED: Wealthy mainland Chinese have had a hard time coming to accept Shanghai Tang as a luxury fashion brand worthy of their money, but the company believes it can change attitudes

campaign took place,” De Chermont said. He claims that Shanghai Tang is “politically correct.” As a Chinese brand, it has moved under the radar of the corruption crackdown, avoiding the characterization as European luxury. Price also comes into play. Shanghai Tang costs less than its European peers. During the corruption crackdown, lower-cost luxury and premium brands have taken in solid growth as China’s anti-graft watchdog has sought out the officials in pricey Hermes blazers. The crackdown might be one trend that has boosted sales at the company but there are other changes in the economy that Shanghai Tang has yet to leverage. Luxury sales in second-tier cities in China are booming. In fact, consultancy McKinsey said last year that sales in these cities are driving luxury consumption on the mainland. As shopping malls fill with Western brands in cities such as Chongqing, Chengdu and Harbin, Shanghai Tang’s presence there is still “little,” De Chermont says. That’s understandable. Chinese brands in these markets will likely be at a disadvantage for now. While luxury consumers in China’s first-tier cities are increasingly sophisticated, often shopping for subtler designs without large labels, buyers outside of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing still want to show off. They appraise products based on price and want friends to know they can afford expensive European brands. A Chinese brand may not suffice in impressing colleagues, at least until consumers in those areas become more refined. Shanghai Tang does have shops in several second-tier cities but they are in airports, catering to the same travel retail crowd as a decade ago. That’s just one more challenge in being a Chinese luxury brand. Shanghai Tang is still mulling how to leverage its heritage and tradition – which cultural characteristics to highlight and which ones to forget. That could very well determine its success or failure on the mainland. China Economic Review | May 2014

COLU M N : G R O W T H T R A D E O F F

A delicate balance BBVA economists Alicia Garcia-Herrero and George Xu take a look at the tradeoff between reform and growth that China must make to continue to develop

Credit: Jonathan Kos-Read

hina’s transition from a centrally planned to a market economy has neither been easy nor n llinear. The government has tried to liberalh iize some of the sectors, aalthough not all, privattize some industries, but Alicia c certainly not all. Overall, oone can argue that the dominance of the stated oowned sectors has been maintained with a spem ccial emphasis since the 22008 global crisis. Such sstrategic choice is also behind the continuation b oof an investment driven ggrowth model. The cost oof such a model, howeveer, cannot be underestiGeorge Xu m mated. Resource misalllocation, overcapacity in the capital-intensive industries, rising domestic financial fragilities as well as many social and environmental problems, are some of them.

China’s annual economic growth has remained above 8% entering the 21st century, before moderating to 7.7% in 2012 and 2013 for two consecutive years. Despite having once again averted a hard landing scenario as was feared earlier in the year, economic rebalancing towards domestic consumption has been very slow, with investment continuing to support growth. In fact, in 2013, the Chinese economy was sustained by exports and supportive government policies, including a “mini” stimulus package focused on infrastructure investment. However, high-frequency economic indicators in early 2014 point to a further slowdown, coming on the heels of sluggish exports and soft domestic demand due to the authorities’ tightening measures to curb financial fragilities. Regarding 2014, the government announced its GDP growth target during the annual National People’s Congress in early March. The target remained the same as in 2013, namely 7.5%. However, in the face of the recent growth headwinds evi-

SOMETHING MUST GIVE: BBVA economists argue that China will see long-term beneﬁts from reform but that will come at the cost of slowing economic growth in the short term

China Economic Review | May 2014

denced by quite gloomy data outturns, Premier Li Keqiang recently hinted that the government will fine-tune economic policies to sustain the economy within a “reasonable zone”, which is interpreted as a combination of two limits: An upper bound of 3.5% for inflation, and a bottom line of 7.0% GDP growth. Against the background of moderating GDP growth and other poor data for the first quarter, maintaining growth above 7% actually means more fiscal and/or monetary stimulus as Li Keqiang acknowledged. The need to push demand policies further and underpin the growth above the floor target comes at a time when China really needs to deliver on structural reforms. In fact, China’s long-awaited “blueprint” has been released after the Third Plenum in November 2013 and aims to enhance the quality of economic growth and facilitate the rebalancing of the economy. The document is ambitious and encouraging for its wide range of scope, reflecting the commitments of China’s new leadership after formally taking power in March 2013. The key elements of this blueprint can be classified as follows. The first is financial sector liberalization, which includes greater private entry into the banking sector, further interest rate liberalization and opening of the capital account as well as a more flexible foreign exchange regime. The second is fiscal reform, including anti-corruption and antiwaste campaign, as well as expansion of VAT pilot program. The third key area is urbanization with additional public housing construction and more channels for public housing finance. The fourth one focuses on the always difficult nexus of the private and public sector. One aspect is SOE governance, for

CO LU M N : G R O W T H T R A D E O F F

which a mixed-ownership structure in SOEs will be explored as well as market pricing for utilities and natural resources. Finally, there is a set of important social measures in the reform package including the relaxation of the one child policy as well as a further streamlining of public administration through reducing the number of administrative tiers and cutting red tape. The question really is whether China can introduce all of these reforms in a lax environment in terms of liquidity or actually needs to restrain credit to force firms to change. While some of the reforms may not be influenced by the availability of credit, it seems clear that changing the incentive structure in which Chinese corporations and banks operate will not be achieved without financial constraints, not to talk about the reduction of overcapacity and the improvement of envi-

“China’s potential growth rate will inexorably come down given its population trends and its rising income per capita. In any event, potential growth will be higher with reforms than without. That is what matters” ronmental concerns. This is where the tradeoff between growth and reform comes from. In order to meet a bottom line of 7.0% GDP growth this year, the new leaders have already fine-tuned

the policy stance towards a laxer one, at least in terms of fiscal policy. In fact, the government will disburse fiscal funds in a more timely manner, continue social housing construction and accelerate public infrastructure investment (railway, highway and water conservancy). As for monetary policy, interbank rates have been kept at lower levels than those back in last December. Further easing in the coming months cannot be ruled out, including cuts in the reserve requirement ratio (RRR). We are still optimistic about China’s medium-term growth outlook as long as China continues with its reform agenda. However, we cannot forget that China’s potential growth rate will inexorably come down given its population trends and its rising income per capita. In any event, potential growth will be higher with reforms than without. That is what matters.

China Economic Review | May 2014

HAD ENOUGH: Mainland investors won't miss this opportunity to take their money out of the stuttering Shanghai bourse and plow it into Hong Kong

Change of direction CHINA TAKES A DUBIOUS SHORTCUT ONTO THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL MARKET

COVER STORY: SHANGHAI-HK CONNECT

nvestors in Shanghai grumbled loudly in early April 2011 when British bank HSBC Holdings said it would yet again delay a listing in the city. The state of the market, one of the world’s worst performing major equities exchanges that year, was simply not ready to absorb an international IPO, the bank’s Asia head implied at the time. After 10 years of mulling over the concept, HSBC’s decision to back out of a mainland listing blackened the prospects for a long-awaited “international board,” on which local officials envisioned major global firms directly accessing China’s capital markets for the first time. Since then, international listings on the mainland have been all but dropped from conversation. Any international firm still considering a Shanghai IPO on the international board may have finally abandoned such thoughts earlier this month when the China Securities and Exchange Commission and the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong said in a joint statement that they would open a cross-border investment channel between their exchanges. The scheme, known as the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect, will grant qualified investors in the two markets access to some shares on the opposite side of the border. Mainland institutional investors with more than RMB500,000 (US$80,000) in their trading accounts will have an aggregate trading quota of US$40 billion to buy up Hong Kong shares on the Hang Seng large and medium cap indices; investors in Hong Kong will have a trading quota of US$48 billion to buy into firms on two of the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s biggest indices, the SSE 300 and SSE 180. "ConChina Economic Review | May 2014

COVER STORY: SHANGHAI-HK CONNECT

Credit: Jim Trodel

and reform the local bourse quickly enough to convince domestic investors that it is the best place to generate returns. “If the Shanghai market cannot catch up, it will inevitably result in a two-tiered market,” Raymond Yeung, a senior economist at ANZ Bank, said from Hong Kong in April. “The Shanghai market will be the second tier.”

BRIGHT BEACON: Hong Kong's solid regulatory environment for securities trading has attracted international listings for decades

nect," as it’s come to be called, should launch within six months. Firms such as European consumer goods giant Unilever, which also expressed interest in listing in Shanghai, will find navigating that opaque regulatory environment increasingly unattractive when it can access mainland capital via a listing in Hong Kong, one of the biggest and most efficient IPO markets in the world. The news should also cheer up the red-eyed mainland investors disappointed by the delayed international board. Connect will grant many of them the access to the strong firms with solid oversight they’ve sought out for years. Market watchers have lauded the stock connect as a breakthrough 18

China Economic Review | May 2014

in China’s capital markets. Hong Kong, too, can expect its prestige as a hub for fund management to grow with its extended reach northward. Given the increased amount of renminbi that will be allowed to move offshore, the scheme is also a sign that Beijing is pushing forward with internationalizing its currency. But there are worries as well. The dimming prospects for an international board could set back the reputation of the mainland market and its regulator. Some analysts see funds in the two-way investment pilot mainly moving southward into the better-performing and more sophisticated Hong Kong market. The game is Shanghai’s to lose – if mainland regulators cannot update

This time around This isn’t the first time the mainland has proposed a cross-border investment experiment into the Hong Kong stock exchange. In 2007, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said on its website that qualified investors could set up accounts at a Bank of China branch in Tianjin’s Binhai special economic zone. The notice said those investors would get limited access to the Hong Kong market, where shares rallied on the expectation of a wave of incoming investment. The plan, though, was never carried out. “The ‘proposal,’ if it can be called that, was more of a pet scheme from Tianjin mayor Dai Xianglong, an ex-PBOC governor, as a way to enhance the city of Tianjin’s credentials as a financial center,” Fraser Howie, the author of several books on the mainland stock exchange and formerly the manager of a mainlandbound investment fund for investment bank CLSA, said in an email in April. “It never got anywhere near implementation and I think it was only taken seriously by [Hong Kong].” This month’s announcement is different, Howie said. The joint statement from both the CSRC and the SFC shows that the two sides are serious about the plan. In 2007, details such as quota volume and timeframe were never divulged. Regulators on both sides of the border have included far more information in this statement. “It could easily have been a much less detailed announcement from the exchanges talking about co-operation,” he said. “But clearly someone, somewhere, has been given approval

COVER STORY: SHANGHAI-HK CONNECT

“If you open a shop and sell goods, but these goods are of dubious quality, bringing in more customers to your shop may generate more business, but it won’t improve the quality of your goods” - Kevin Lai, Daiwa Capital Markets in Hong Kong to talk about billions of dollars of quota at this early stage.” Big quotas to fill Connect will fall into direct competition with China’s original crossborder investment programs. The Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor scheme, or QFII, allowed foreign investors to access China’s capital markets starting in 2003. The Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor program, known as QDII, which lets mainland investors access

capital markets abroad, followed in 2006. The quota for QFII has jumped from just US$30 billion in 2011 to US$150 billion last year. However, the program, known for its burdensome paperwork, has struggled to attract investors, with only US$53 billion, or little more than a third of the quota, allocated for investment in 2013, according to consultancy Z-Ben Advisors. The poor performance of QFII is directly related to the performance of the Chinese stock market. The Shanghai Stock Exchange has languished during the past five years. Poor corporate governance has led to numerous fraud cases and investors have routinely lost out on hyped-up IPO prices that eventually plummet. Regulators have failed to clean up the mess. In November 2012, the CSRC stopped approving new IPOs in the hope of cleaning out bad companies from the listing pipeline. Some 900 capital-starved companies were lined up for approval in the summer months of 2013. The implicit ban persisted for more than a year before about 50 firms were allowed to list starting this January. Regulators started the year with promises to make it easier for companies to list and boost legal oversight for

The QFII quota growth story (allocated and cap, USD bln) Actual Quota (USD bln)

300

Cap (USD bln)

250 200 150 100 50 0 2003

2004

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2006

2007

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2009

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2012

2013

2014e

Source: Z-Ben Advisors

China Economic Review | May 2014

COVER STORY: SHANGHAI-HK CONNECT

30000

25000

Hong Kong’s Heng Sang Index has performed well for more than a decade, rarely dipping below the 10,000-point mark. Although it is still below its all-time high in 2008, the index has recovered much better than mainland indexes.

20000

15000

10000

0 2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

6000

At its greatest swell, the Shanghai Composite Index hardly reached above the 6,000-point mark. For half a decade, the mainland’s capital markets have languished due to low investor conﬁdence 4000

2000

0 2000

2001

2002

listed firms but investor confidence, including that of foreigners with QFII quotas, remains low. At US$48 billion, the inbound stock connect quota is much smaller than the quota for QFII (however, it is very close to the size of the QFII quotas that are actually allocated). Mainland securities analysts were mixed on the impact the new plan would have on the older system. “I think the influence on QFII will be limited,” Yan Yijin, an analyst at Chief Securities in Beijing, said last month. Demand for mainland shares could be sluggish given the state of the market, she said. The original program’s international status should maintain some demand for those quotas. “QFII isn’t just investment from Hong Kong. It’s also used in Europe and the US. Connect will be limited to Hong Kong.” Cao Yu, an equities analyst at Avic Securities in Beijing, down20

China Economic Review | May 2014

2003

2004

2005

2006

played the initial impact the program will have on mainland brokers, stressing that more details are needed. The model between Shanghai and Hong Kong, if successful, could be replicated between the mainland and other international exchanges in the future, but the government has yet to give any signs that it will do that, he said. Mainland brokerages that deal in QFII or QDII will need to prepare for a change in the kind of services they offer, said Fu Jing, a Wuhanbased analyst at Changjiang Securities. “The companies should go to expand their scope of operations,” she said. Specifications for the plan, especially those concerning the requirements for taking part, have yet to be issued. Securities companies will have to wait for clearer directions before they can respond, Fu said. “We don’t have the details yet. We don’t know what kind of system this is going to be.”

Plug the leak A few details beyond those provided in the early April announcement have emerged. Some media reports say the investment system will be a “closed loop,” meaning that money Hong Kong investors put into mainland firms will not be allowed to flow into the real economy in China, instead remaining locked into the securities market. Surprisingly, China’s central bank has yet to weigh in on the new plan or demonstrate how its policy will support Connect or prevent capital leakage. “I haven’t seen any opinions from the PBOC on how this will connect to overall monetary policy,” Yeung at ANZ said. “Is it compatible with monetary policy? This doesn’t seem so apparent yet.” Making sure Connect doesn’t open another hole through which hot money flows into China will be essential for the central bank. PBOC

COVER STORY: SHANGHAI-HK CONNECT

and China’s customs officials have been fighting an uphill battle for years against currency speculators who have bet on the slow, one-way appreciation of the renminbi. Traders in China often inflate the value of their exports when shipping to partners in Hong Kong, allowing them to bring extra yuan into China. On top of what was once thought to be guaranteed appreciation against the dollar, the hot money could be invested in high-yielding money market funds or even real estate developments. Such activity has skewed export data for more than a year. However, since early February, the People’s Bank has fought back by pushing down the value of the renminbi. The currency hit a 16-month low against the dollar in mid-April prompting an abrupt halt to the practice that caused exports in February to plummet by 18% from a year earlier. Without close coordination between securities and monetary policymakers, the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect is another worrisome channel for currency speculation. There’s no definitive answer on how the program could be used for financial arbitrage just yet but Yeung said the use of a company’s shares that are listed in both Shanghai and Hong Kong as a form of collateral could open up a channel for hot inflows. “I think the real concern from the mainland is hot money going into real estate,” Yeung said, further fueling property speculation and the possible formation of bubbles in one of the country’s most sensitive sectors. Damaged goods The CSRC may be concerned with how its experiment could open the country to hot inflows in the short term. Likely greater on the minds of the top decision makers at the regulatory body are long-term worries over the performance of the mainland exchange, especially after Connect opens it to greater competition with the outside world. The program will, in effect, be

Shanghai’s shortcut onto the global financial scene. Whether that’s good or bad for the long-term development of the mainland equities market is up for debate. It certainly won’t help the development of an international board in Shanghai. Once mainland investors get access to companies listed in Hong Kong, the listings of global companies will become the “de facto international board,” according to ANZ Research. International businesses will have little incentive to wet their feet in the Chinese market before its regulatory and corporate governance problems are cleaned up. “I think if the Shanghai regulatory environment can catch up or meet international standards that will be a plus,” Yeung said. “But if they fail to do this, that might actually be a drag on the development of the market. Companies will prefer to list in Hong Kong … Investors will take advantage of better infrastructure and better corporate governance and the overall high quality of the Hong Kong stock exchange.” The outbound quota for Connect is lower than the inbound, revealing some fears on the potential for a flight of capital from the mainland. The Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect isn’t an all-powerful antidote set to solve the problems the mainland has faced for a decade. In the end, the onus of bringing a greater level of transparency to the local market and boosting corporate governance at Chinese companies still falls on the regulators, whether it be the CSRC or China’s judicial arm, which has been far too lax on rule-breaking firms. “If you open a shop and sell goods, but these goods are of dubious quality, bringing in more customers to your shop may generate more business, but it won’t improve the quality of your goods,” said Kevin Lai, a Hong Kong-based economist at Daiwa Capital Markets. “They need to change the whole investment landscape in China … Then there may be more interest in the mainland market.” China Economic Review | May 2014

ECONOMICS & POLICY: ANALYSIS OF Q1 GDP

DON’T BUDGE: Despite decelerating economic growth in the ﬁrst quarter of 2014, top leaders in Beijing have held back from releasing the ﬁscal trigger. Staying the course will be the best thing to do in the long-run

GDP pangs Trying to decipher the meaning and signiﬁcance of the growth ﬁgures for China’s economy is no easy task

f expectations are low, beating them doesn’t mean much. China’s GDP grew by 7.4% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2014, a notch above the market consensus of 7.3%. But after three months of mainly gloomy economic data, analysts weren’t betting on a powerful punch in overall growth figures. The stats from March alone give reason to believe that China has yet to rebound from a tough start to the year. As for giving the economy a gentle fiscal nudge, Beijing has likely said all it intends to on that matter with some targeted measures in recent weeks. China Economic Review thinks that’s just fine as long as economic reform keeps abreast. March was a tough month with the important numbers slowing across the board. Fixed-asset investment slowed again to 17.4% from 17.9% in February. Property investment dropped to 14.2% year-on-year growth from 19.3% in the first two

China Economic Review | May 2014

months of the year. Societe Generale noted that new property starts plummeted to -22% in the first quarter of the year after growing at 33% in the last quarter of 2013. The drop is alarming and bodes poorly for the real estate market in the coming months. At 8.8%, industrial production in March chinned only slightly above the disappointing figure from the first two months of the year. But the uptick can be misleading. It came off of a sharp decline in March 2013 when factory output, a pulse reading on the steel and cement markets, dropped one percentage point. The low base for comparison should have helped the figure look strong but it didn’t. Many experts are predicting an even worse second quarter of the year. “We maintain our view that GDP growth is on a downward trend and we will continue to expect it to slow to 7.1% in Q2,” Nomura Research said in a report following the release

of the GDP data on April 16. The investment bankers looking to sell China have extolled the recent “mini-stimulus” or “fine-tuning” package that will boost investment into select areas of the economy such as rail and dilapidated neighborhoods and cut taxes for small and medium enterprises. The government made such pledges in what appeared to be a response to ugly February data. Some analysts cheered. “We believe Premier Li [Keqiang]’s vow to expand tax rebates to small enterprises, accelerate the shanty town renovation and construction, and increase railway investment using both public and private funds will also help propel the growth momentum in Q2,” ANZ Bank said in a note, adding that a cyclical upturn was already underway. The fiscal help might be hyped, though. Many of the measures that the government announced in March were already on the agenda. The pre-

ECONOMICS & POLICY: ANALYSIS OF Q1 GDP

mier simply corralled the efforts into what sounds like a more cohesive plan, perhaps with the intention of lifting confidence in the market. It should also be remembered that, at the Boao financial summit in Hainan province in early April, Li said he would focus on “healthy economic development,” ruling out chances for a more forceful stimulus push in 2014 A lack of support from Li and his entourage at the State Council has led many to look to the People’s Bank of China for relief. In March, total social financing, or TSF, China’s broadest measure of credit growth, expanded more than expected at RMB2.07 trillion. But lending usually rises rapidly in March and the TSF figure for the first quarter of 2014 lagged compared to last year. The market is now waiting to see if PBOC will use some of the monetary tools at its disposal to get money moving through the system. An obvious option is to cut the reserve requirement ratio for big banks, an

explicitly pro-growth move in the face of the country’s many other challenges. Consensus among analysts is mixed, with some saying a slight cut is imminent given the first quarter GDP data and a lowering of the ratio to certain county-level banks. Others say the central bank will wait to see how the light fiscal boost of the mini stimulus will impact the economy. China Economic Review would like to reflect on some of the maxims that have been thrown around during the past year to chart out the best course of action in the first half of 2014. “The core of reform in China today is deleveraging the economy altogether,” an economist from Moody’s said at a conference in Shanghai late last year. That’s a good starting point for policymakers in 2014. Allowing lenders to hold less cash in reserve would be a signal for them to boost lending, something that will work against the goal of deleveraging an economy addicted to

credit. Instead, Beijing should push banks to increase lending to only healthy customers, something they are capable of doing with the current level of liquidity in the market. While repeated many times, Premier Li continues to point out that “the biggest economic dividend will come from reform.” Those returns will come far slower than those from a powerful stimulus package or loosened monetary policy but they won’t come laced with the same kind of financial risk that unbridled credit growth has already wrought on the economy. GaveKal Dragonomics analysts say the biggest challenge this year is maintaining a public sense that reforms are still moving along even as the country continues to report insipid economic data. Staying the course with reforms and deleveraging might be the strongest signal that leaders are determined to put the Chinese economic juggernaut on the right path to development.

China Economic Review | May 2014

E CO N O M I C S & P O L I C Y: T R A D E D ATA

Export slowdown Trade data disappointed for a second month in March but the market is coming to accept that the ﬁgures are going to be muddled for some time still

t least it wasn’t a double-digit drop like February. That’s what people are saying about China’s export data for March, which fell 6.6% from a year ago. After a more than 18% year-onyear drop in exports in the second month of the year, March’s contraction may feel milder than that but there is strong reason to believe that real exporters have taken a harder hit than in the last two months. The keyword in Chinese trade data for more than a year has been “distortion.” The slowly but steadily appreciating yuan inspired traders to inflate the value of their shipments with the intention of bringing more cash onshore. This was done mainly through partners in yuan trading hubs such as Taiwan and Hong Kong. The proposition has looked less promising since the central bank pushed the value of the yuan downward in recent weeks. Hot money inflows have slowed down considerably. The depreciating yuan, along with

some seasonal factors such as Chinese New Year, led to the jaw-dropping collapse in February after exports beat analyst expectations just a month earlier. Some of the distortion is starting to clear and a distinct difference can be drawn between the numbers for February and March. Some haze still remains, though. For example, exports in the first two months of 2013 surged by 23% when the market expected only 11% growth. Analysts should have seen the drop off from that towering base in February. March’s data is strikingly different. Government measures had cooled much of the speculative cash inflows by the end of the first quarter last year. Exports grew by 10% in March 2013, spooking the market with the threat of a slowdown. Off the relatively low base, economists expected positive growth in exports between 4-5% in March. They didn’t get that; many may prefer the cloak of distortion to what is shaping up to be a

GOING WHERE?: Shipments may be falling, but not to the extent indicated by government data

China Economic Review | May 2014

clear slowdown. One strong piece of evidence counters that negative view, however. London-based Capital Economics pointed out in a note that, if Hong Kong and Taiwan are taken out of the export equation, shipments to the rest of the world would have grown by a healthy 7.8%; exports to the two offshore yuan centers sunk by a whopping 42% year-on-year. “Our field study also shows that the exports are more resilient than what the headline data suggest,” ANZ Research said in a note. HSBC economists say that exports likely grew by more than 5% in March if distortion from speculation a year ago is removed from the picture. Still, “March trade numbers disappointed,” HSBC said, “and the contraction in both exports and imports cannot all be blamed on base effects or seasonal distortions. Weak demand is the main culprit, both internally and externally.” Activity inside of China is in some ways more surprising. Imports fell 11.3% year-on-year, a further sign of waning domestic demand. The decrease in inbound shipments is also closely linked to exports because large quantities of raw materials are imported, processed and then re-exported. But the slowdown is also connected to products consumed on the mainland. Retail figures have looked bleak this year, falling to a 10-year low in the first two months. Will the distortion ever end, and can the market adjust to meaningless and misleading trade data? That’s hard to say right now. Markets haven’t been hit hard by the news. Perhaps stock traders learned a lesson from February. Coming off of a -18% base, next February’s data will undoubtedly be distorted too. The question is whether or not the market will remember.

ECONOMICS & POLICY: HOUSING

China’s crumbling housing The collapse of a barely 20-year-old housing block in Zhejiang province is closely tied to an economic development plan that has come to the end of its shelf life

e careful where you step – even when walking through your own living room. One person perished and six suffered severe injuries early in April when parts of their five-story apartment building in Fenghua county, Zhejiang province, collapsed into a pile of dust and rubble. The building was deemed dangerous in December after a typhoon damaged it, officials warned at the time. Even so, the incident has reignited discussion on the quality and safety of Chinese buildings and what poor construction practices mean for the future of the country’s development. Building inspectors are reportedly vetting similar structures throughout the region, including some in Shanghai. Many Chinese buildings aren’t constructed to stand the tests of time, not even for a short period. In 2010, housing officials shocked the country when they revealed that many residential properties had a lifespan of just 20 years. The average period of time that Chinese housing remains livable in is a meager 35 years compared to a century or more in many developed countries. Many housing units in China have already hit the lower end of their shelf-life. The apartment block in Fenghua was built just 20 years ago. Large swathes of housing were rolled out across the country in the early 1990s as China transitioned from a government-assigned housing system in urban areas to a form of private ownership. Housing built during the plannedeconomy phase of China might be especially shoddy as the highly subsidized rents paid by tenants often failed to cover even the cost of construction, leading to poorer building quality. The short lifespan doesn’t mean

that living-room floors across the country will begin crumbling beneath residents’ feet. The term refers to the durability of housing without substantial renovation. Failure of power systems could be some of the early problems with flats. Before too long, many housing blocks across the country will look dilapidated; many already do. Last year, China Economic Review reported on a controversial study that said poor building quality and China’s short-sighted landlease system would lead developers in major urban areas to neglect reinvestment in city centers. The study, published by an international team of scholars, said the conditions would push investment to the outskirts of cities, leading to urban sprawl. More alarming, it could also cause city centers to decay into slums. While the safety of buildings will stay in focus for years to come, some of China’s top development authorities have started questioning the philosophy behind the faulting construction, as well as some hidden consequences of bad practices that could disrupt the country’s growth. To Qiao Runling, deputy director at China’s top planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission, the short lifespan doesn’t simply indicate how long the housing is livable in but how long developers wait to tear down one project in order to raise a more expensive one “Chinese like to demolish buildings just so they can build new ones,” Qiao said, speaking at a real estate investment forum in Shanghai in mid-April. The buildings aren’t torn down because they’re dangerous but rather because local officials want to drive the economy with new construction

projects. It’s “political willingness” that often cuts short the life of many otherwise healthy buildings, Qiao said. “The local government wants to stimulate GDP growth and they choose the crudest way to do this: Demolition then rebuilding.” The practice isn’t just a waste of valuable real estate, it’s a major polluter and consumer of energy. The energy needed to fuel China’s construction industry accounts for about one-third of the country’s total energy consumption, Qiao said. Where energy consumption is high, so is pollution. The unceasing cycle of building and demolition adds to China’s already dire environmental conditions. On top of that, China has little capacity to reuse construction waste, unlike countries such as Japan. Some reports say that construction refuse has literally encircled cities like Hangzhou. Political incentives might be waning for some of the wasteful construction, however. As part of the new government’s reform package, Beijing will try to reorder the incentives on which local government officials operate. Spending and building to boost GDP growth has been a key tactic employed by provincial cadres over the past decade. High GDP figures have often earned officials promotion regardless of the efficiency of their work. Beijing will try to factor in sustainability and efficiency when appraising the work of tens of thousands of officials across the country while at the same time reducing the often-high expectations for growth pressed on regional governments. That could be bad news for those who forged their careers on pulling down buildings just as fast as they could raise them. China Economic Review | May 2014

SUPPLY RISK: China has an agreement to buy 3 million tons of grain from Ukraine on an annaul basis, as part of its plans to secure its growing import needs, but that investment is under risk as the government in Kiev loses control of important agriculural regions

Conflict crops Rising tensions in Ukraine ﬂag the threats to Beijing’s grain import policy and underscore the risks in relying on state partners for strategic assets

major shipment of Ukrainian corn entered China on December 6 last year, the first installment of what was supposed to be an annual 3 million tons of the grain from the eastern European country. Much has changed since 2012 when China and Ukraine signed the loan-for-crops deal that brought the delivery to port. At the time, ExportImport Bank, one of Beijing’s policy lenders that smooth foreign trade, gave Kiev access to US$3 billion in loans in exchange for a steady supply of grain. Today, a fragile new government clings to power in Kiev, and the

China Economic Review | May 2014

Crimean peninsula, from which 10% of Ukraine’s grains are shipped, has been annexed by Russia, a great concern to the international community. In early April violence flared in eastern parts of the country, major cornproducing areas that border Russia. Beijing’s corn deal with Ukraine’s former government hangs in the balance. Chinese grain importers dealt mainly with Ukrainian state-owned firms in the past. Now that the government has changed, the terms of those agreements may be up for early review. “If you change the government, there is a very big question mark:

Whether the contract or the agreement will still keep on, or if they will break the promise and say they need new investment,” said Jane Peng, a Shanghai-based analyst at the Netherlands’ Rabobank. A war in the country has the potential to derail any deals as well, she noted. The crisis in Ukraine comes as Beijing reorders its priorities for grain imports and domestic food production. China has long touted a self-sufficiency policy for grain, requiring that domestic farmers produce 95% of the country’s staple crops. On the face of it, the policy remains intact. But a new, more practical generation

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E CO N O M I C S & P O L I C Y: G E O P O L I T I C S A N D C R O P S

Credit: Hanna

of policymakers has also recognized the challenges that China will face in the future in feeding its massive population. Earlier this year, the State Council said that domestic producers must maintain 95% self sufficiency for edible grains but relaxed the requirements on crops that are used as feed for livestock, with corn the primary target. Chinese aren’t crazy about corn on the cob, but their pigs are. As the world’s biggest consumer of pork, the grain consumed by the animals is also of strategic importance to the long chain of industries that puts China’s favorite meat on the table. Over the next few years, China will look to stabilize its total grain production at below the volume cultivated in 2013, showing that the government plans to become increasingly flexible over the amount of grain that it imports. The new policy stance will likely lead to a great increase in corn imports over the next decade and China’s state-owned importers are

gearing up for that change. Late in March, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine signed a deal that will allow Brazil to begin exporting corn to China. The deal looked like a bid to move away from reliance on the US, which contributed more than 90% of the corn that China imported last year. Shipments from Ukraine were part of China’s push into new grain markets other than the US. For farmers in Ukraine’s agrarian heartland, the political chaos has come at an inconvenient moment. During the next 15 years, Chinese feed grain imports could rise by as much as 210%, according to a report by Rabobank’s Peng. Corn makes up the bulk of the feed, with wheat and soybean also filling a substantial role. Between 2015 and 2020, China’s corn imports are set to jump by about 33% to an annual incoming load of 8 million tons. Ukrainian farmers no doubt hope to fill some of those orders.

KEEP OUT: The future of Chinese access to farms in east Ukraine is unclear at this point

Some potential for even greater growth in corn imports exists – if China decides to loosen its policy further. Like many other agricultural purchases, corn is part of an import quota regime. For imports within the 7.2 million-ton quota, tariffs stand at 1%, but outside of that quota the tariff can be as high as 180%. In the past, under pressure to maintain efficiency, keep costs low and feed the population, China has ditched quota regimes. Imports of soybeans soared between 2004 and 2010 after the government scrapped many restrictions. China’s corn inventory is high this year and demand is low, not the kind of conditions that will push Beijing to remove the quota regime, Peng said. But as demand for pork increases, so will the demand for corn. If China experiences a domestic corn shortage, the government may reconsider the quota regime. In turn, changes to the system could cause “imports to treble overnight,” the Rabobank report says. That’s because the international price of corn is 20% lower than in China due to the higher cost of production on the mainland. Ukraine and Brazil have high potential for catering to a hungry China. The countries contribute 3.3% and 1.4% to China’s corn imports, respectively, but have the greatest prospects for increasing shipments as demand grows in China, the Rabobank report says. China’s state-owned importers have preferred doing business with their peers in government-controlled firms around the world. The rocky political situation in Ukraine might lead them to reconsider signing more deals with state enterprises in the country for fear of losing the contracts in a rapid shift in leadership. Private corn exporters could even become the winners in the political transition. “[China] would be happy to deal with them,” Peng said. “That will be a totally different story, dealing with the privately owned companies instead of the state-owned ones.” China Economic Review | May 2014

CONSTRUCTION KING: Wanda Group founder and chairman Wang Jianglin has leapfrogged rivals by completing big projects on time

Walking the walk Insights from a property tycoon on how to succeed in a murky market

mbitious real estate projects in China are not hard to come by. In 2012, an unknown developer made a splash with plans to build the world’s tallest building with a prefabricated structure. Cranes are pulling up the last remaining pieces of Shanghai Tower, which aims to be the secondtallest building on Earth. It is rare, however, for them to be completed on time, on budget – or even completed at all. The centerpiece project in the country’s financial capital is unlikely to open as scheduled and its developer, Shanghai Construction, is reportedly struggling to find tenants. The prefab monster in Changsha remains

China Economic Review | May 2014

an unfulfilled vision amid problems with building material quality and ballooning costs. So a man who can deliver such grand constructions to the market as planned stands out. Wang Jianglin, chairman and founder of Dalian Wanda Group, one of the biggest and most talked-about property companies in China right now, is such a figure. His Wanda Plaza shopping malls are ubiquitous in big cities and his firm is taking on Hollywood with a US$2.6 billion buyout of US cinema chain AMC and a planned US$8.2 billion investment into a film complex in the northern seaside city of Qingdao. At a lecture on April 12 at the

China Europe International Business School’s (CEIBS) Shanghai campus, Wang narrowed down some of the factors that have led the company to take on larger-than-life projects like the one in Qingdao. To Wang, the difference between success and failure has simply meant “walking the walk” with the works he takes on. That is to say, meeting or beating project deadlines. Wang said meeting the deadline for projects has been one of the most important ingredients for building what is now among China’s most valuable property development companies. By completing massive commercial and cultural projects on or before the originally set date, Wanda

Credit: Fortune Live Media

B U S I N E S S : T YCO O N TA L K

has elated customers looking to buy space and, perhaps more importantly, ingratiated itself with local governments eager to stimulate business and generate tax revenues. Wanda isn’t a listed company but Wang says it has grown 30% annually for the past eight years. Forbes named Wang the richest man in China last August. With a net worth of US$14.2 billion, he was the world’s 128th richest person in 2013. Wanda’s track record on some of its latest projects is solid – amazing by the measure of some local officials. The government of Guangzhou pressured Wanda to build, market and open the 400,000square-meter Baiyun Wanda Plaza before the start of the Asian Games in November 2010. That gave the company 11 months to complete the massive project. To the surprise and delight of cadres in the city, the doors of the mall swung open in October, a month before the major sporting event. “One official [at the project in Guangzhou] thought that Wanda must be operating like an army, where people who don’t meet their targets are whipped,” he said jokingly. Before breaking ground on a new project, the company often holds what Wang called a “town hall” meeting where information, including the opening date, is distributed to potential customers, mainly the owners of businesses that plan to buy space in Wanda’s malls. If customers know when a project will open, they can organize labor and products accordingly. That can make a big difference for a mall that opens at the end of China’s lunar year, when hundreds of millions of people return to their hometowns, draining labor markets for more than a week. “A lot of shop owners have become very loyal to us … On the opening day, 100% of shop owners can exhibit their products in our shopping malls. In tens of years, we have never seen one delay,” Wang said. Opening a multibillion-dollar project in a country known for bureaucratic obstacles and delays is

“One ofﬁcial [at the project in Guangzhou] thought that Wanda must be operating like an army, where people who don’t meet their targets are whipped” - Wang Jianglin, founder and chairman of Wanda Group and one of the richest men in mainland China no simple task. Wanda keeps tight central authority over its many regional projects. The company does not allow its regional projects to adopt their own financing systems. Managers must adhere to a highly centralized plan. A strong reward and punishment system for the people responsible for raising these massive developments has been key to making sure the projects finish on time, Wang said. “It’s easier said than done,” he said. “Everyone wants to set up a reward and punishment system but it takes courage to implement it.” Courage might mean taking down one of your top executives. Wang has taken a hard line against the kind of malpractice that often slows other Chinese projects, namely self-interest at a managerial level that can lead to inefficiency and poor quality. He spoke of an executive vice president who was tasked to take bids for building materials for a project. Instead of looking to the top industry players, the vice president planned to source cable from a company on the verge of bankruptcy, a transaction rife with corruption. He was fired after an internal investigation. Wang said he’s tried to eliminate the loyalty-above-all-else mentality from his internal business in exchange for a philosophy based on

structure. Many Chinese companies build their business around family and friends with the hope that they won’t be betrayed. At the same time, deadly family feuds still make headlines in the country. Wang said he’s kept his family and friends out of Wanda, if anything for the perception of transparency. To him, loyalty and trust are fleeting. “When you’re faced by a very beautiful girl, your loyalty might disappear,” he said. Rewards have also been crucial for motivating employees to meet their target, and competing with clunky state-owned firms where hard work can easily go overlooked. At a project in the city of Wuhan, Wanda’s sales team was told to achieve US$1.12 billion (RMB7 billion) in sales in a matter of months. The team of 100 people came up with US$1.6 billion (RMB10 billion) in sales by the deadline, Wang claimed. Wanda handed out bonuses to those employees that were several times greater than their peers on other projects. “In some state owned enterprises, people at the same level cannot have this kind of compensation,” he said. State enterprise, which is on the cusp of undergoing its biggest reform in 20 years, should take note. The often inflexible reward system for lowly sales people at state companies could be holding projects back. The company’s biggest challenge still lies ahead of it in Qingdao. The ground-breaking ceremony was dazzling. Wanda flew in film stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Hong Kong’s Tony Leung for the opening of the multibillion dollar film studio. But Wanda and Wang have a lot riding on the ambitious project, which is slated to open in June 2016. The sheer size of the film metropolis in a region unknown to the film industry and without the lifestyle attractions of Beijing or Shanghai will test the company’s ability to both build and sell its products. As the scale increases and the deadlines tighten, Wang is pushing his team to the limit of what’s possible while raising the bar for everyone else. China Economic Review | May 2014

B U S I N E S S : CO N S U M E R A R T

PAY ATTENTION: Massive queues at big art shows in Shanghai could herald the birth of a new consumer market

Affordable art Is art for the middle classes the next big consumer trend in China?

he short queue at the ticket counter for the Claude Monet exhibition is deceptive: Inside, the rooms are crowded with people studying paintings by the French Impressionist master. Stern-faced guards keep close watch on the proceedings, which are subdued and quiet except for the frequent bleep of an alarm when visitors lean too close to the priceless portraits and landscapes. “Master of Impression – Claude Monet,” held in a gallery space at the upscale K11 shopping mall in Shanghai, attracted nearly 7,000 visitors on its opening weekend in March, with some people lining up for over three hours to get inside, according to the show’s organizers.

China Economic Review | May 2014

After hosting only a few blockbuster events in recent years, Shanghai is suddenly awash with major art shows. Japan’s Kusama Yayoi pulled in huge crowds at the MoCA Shanghai earlier in the year; Pablo Picasso and Victor Hugo will go on display in the coming months. The investors and organizers behind this movement are hoping it is the start of a huge new trend in middle-class art consumption. Previous efforts to bring major art exhibitions to town have had mixed success. The last time Shanghai Tix Media, the organizers of the Monet show, attempted something on this scale, they ran up losses of about US$3.2 million, company director Xie Dingwei told local media pre-

viously. Pablo Picasso wasn’t big enough to pull the masses into the cavernous space of China Art Museum in 2011. This time should be different. “We’ve done some research,” Xie told China Economic Review. “People around 18 to 30 usually spend money on leisure rather than buying art books or exhibition tickets. But this is changing now.” The investment in the Monet exhibition has been “huge,” Xie said, without disclosing exact figures, while noting the company is already working on plans to bring more such shows to China amid growing interest in fine art. Xie is confident that the large, eager turnout for K11’s Monet exhibition represents more than a passing

B U S I N E S S : CO N S U M E R A R T

fad. “Recently, going to art exhibitions is becoming a fashion among young people, but I believe most of them go to the exhibition out of love and concern for art, or at least out of curiosity.” His optimism is shared by many who have a stake in the development of the art world. The Shanghai government is redeveloping a five-mile area of the Huangpu River into the West Bund Cultural Corridor that will house the Long Museum and Yuz Museum. Both are privately owned by wealthy individuals looking to display their personal collections. More than 10 public and private contemporary art museums are already open in Shanghai; other big cities like Beijing are home to many more. On a weekday visit to the Monet exhibition in early April, China Economic Review felt a palpable appreciation of the art among the crowd of mostly young, female, cultured Chinese visitors. Two female teachers in their thirties had taken the train into town from Suzhou for the day. Another woman, a painting student who belongs to a large group of art hobbyists and teachers on the mobile social app WeChat, had also come in from Suzhou. There were male admirers too. “I think young men really prefer the Western art,” said a youthful salesman from Guangzhou. “It’s a trend.” Not everyone is convinced that this upsurge in interest will hold. “Fifteen years ago there were several exhibitions in Taiwan which caused a sensation, but nowadays if they want to hold these exhibitions, frankly, the curators will lose money,” said Hu Yixun, a professor who studies the art market at the Fine Arts College of Shanghai University. “The art exhibition market is saturated. If these kinds of exhibitions are continuously held in Shanghai, audiences will eventually feel nothing.” Art is big business, and not just for museums. China has ranked as the world’s top art buyer for four years straight, accounting for over US$4 billion in sales in 2013, according to France-based research firm Artprice. But most of these purchases

SHOWTIME: Modern art is getting more attention from consumers and the media

take place at auction houses, where wealthy Chinese collectors snap up high-priced artworks, treating them as investments. If the current interest in art among the middle class in China becomes a genuine cultural trait, it could spur the emergence of a lucrative affordable art market. Affordable art is mostly made up of contemporary artworks that are bought by individuals for their homes and has developed into a huge market in developed countries. Almost one in every four adults in the UK bought affordable art in 2012 worth a combined US$8 billion. About 70% of art bought in the West is affordable, according to 2012 data from Surge Art, a Beijing-based art dealer and

consultancy. In China, the figure was 33%; the signs are that this proportion is set to grow quickly. Rising wages are boosting the spending power of middle class art consumers. Around 66% of Chinese urban households had an annual earned income in the range of US$9,000 to US$34,000 in 2012, up from just 4% in 2000, according to McKinsey, a consultancy. That is projected to hit 75% by 2020. Increasingly, China’s new bourgeoisie craves goods of a more intangible kind. James Roy, Associate Principal at Shanghai-based research company China Market Research Group, notes a strong shift in middle class spending over the past couple of years away China Economic Review | May 2014

B U S I N E S S : CO N S U M E R A R T

Credit: David Gran

from “stuff” and towards “experiences” – purchases geared to leisure and quality of life. Spending on movie tickets, dining and tourism, for example, has been soaring well above overall retail sales growth. Today’s Chinese consumers are also are more willing to invest in decorating their homes for their own comfort and enjoyment, even if they don’t plan on entertaining guests. Art sellers have stepped in to cater to the growing sophistication and swelling bank accounts of this new consumer class. Leading the way is Surge Art, which sells contemporary Chinese art at prices ranging from around US$80 to US$4,830 (RMB 500 to RMB 30,000). Paintings, sculptures, photographs and other works by emerging artists can be

“I think it’s a process of popularization of art appreciation. People can learn to appreciate art by following the trend,” - Hu Yixun, professor of art at Shanghai University ordered off SURGE’s website, which allows users to browse products by variables including size, color, and price. Surge Art, formerly called Afford-

NOT JUST MEMORIES: Young Chinese like to ﬂaunt their new-found interest in art

China Economic Review | May 2014

able Art China, launched the online store to complement its annual art fairs, held since 2006 in Beijing, and later expanded to Shanghai and Chengdu. The fairs, which are free for the public to attend, showcase the works of thousands of artists. According to Lercier Lei, Surge’s art director and curator, each fair attracts more than 10,000 visitors. The large turnout at the fairs raises hopes that a new market for affordable modern art is taking shape. But it may be too early for such optimism. The massive overrepresentation of foreign buyers (half of those at the Surge Art events in Shanghai are foreigners and almost 30% in Beijing) implies tepid local demand, at least for now. Surge Art’s less than satisfactory online sales attest to the challenges that remain in convincing those Chinese with a new interest in art to take some home. Putting a value on the affordable art market in China is hard. Surge Art was not able to provide sales figures from its events and none of the major market research companies contacted by China Economic Review calculate such data. But while the art being sold is affordable, it is not cheap. The average price range of the artworks sold by Surge Art is US$960 to US$1,280 (RMB 6,000 to RMB 8,000). Nurturing genuine interest in modern art cannot be achieved overnight or even in a single generation. The challenge is harder when the artworks are so different to the native cultural norms in China, which has its own rich art tradition. But there are signs this trend could develop over the long term. “I think it’s a process of education and popularization of art appreciation. People can learn to appreciate art gradually starting by following the trend,” said Hu, the professor at the Fine Arts College, despite his misgivings about the exhibition craze. “Can we assume that when this young generation reach their forties or fifties and have a middle-class income, they are very likely to become the main buyers in art consumption? Logically and optimistically, this should be the case.”

FINANCE: MAINLAND IPOS

ECSTATIC: The blistering performance of new IPO stocks on mainland markets has no doubt given some investors joy

Surging ahead China’s ﬁrst batch of IPO stocks in over a year have skyrocketed

t’s a miracle. After a year without an IPO on the mainland, China’s newest listed firms have performed incredibly well in their first few months on the market. The 48 companies that listed in January before Chinese New Year were trading at an average of 58% above their listing price as of April 1, according to data compiled by CapitalVue. None have fallen below the original price and several had experienced amazing growth. The price of Geron, a textile carding equipment maker that listed in Shenzhen in January, increased 168%. More likely than not, the rapid gains can be attributed to the rockbottom prices at which the companies listed. When the China Securities

Regulatory Commission (CSRC) lifted its implicit ban on IPOs in January, it also ramped up the regulatory hurdles facing companies about to go public. Those with high valuations were asked to tone them down. One IPO was even canceled. The low offering prices have led to rampant speculation on the new listings. After 14 months without an IPO, in a market that has performed poorly this year, the new shares looked like a steal. “Especially compared with current market, those valuations had a certain advantage,” said Hou Yingmin, an equities analyst at Shanghai-based Aijian Securities. “So the market has led to continuous speculation.” One mainland equities analyst at

Zhongcheng Securities called this year’s listings a “bubble.” The reopening of the stock exchange to IPOs wasn’t supposed to happen like this. The problems afflicting the market now are the same ones that have troubled China for years. If this is a bubble, investors will stand to lose as they have in the past. The phenomenon doesn’t bode well for the companies either if they were indeed pushed to list at below what the market thinks they are worth. Late last year, the Chinese government pledged to upgrade the listing process to a registration-based system more in line with exchanges in developed markets. The current application process is arduous and time China Economic Review | May 2014

FINANCE: MAINLAND IPOS

Credit: Sylvi

consuming as firms’ IPO plans are reviewed individually. The CSRC tends to tighten regulatory hurdles when liquidity dries up and goes lax when conditions are better. Many companies wait years to list; some go bankrupt during that time without access to capital. A registration system, on the other hand, sets standard entry requirements that don’t change with the weather. This is usually followed up with stringent controls on company behavior after listing, something China is in desperate need of. Regulators have not been tough on fraudulent companies that make off with investor funds. Retail investors have ridden speculative waves only to lose it all in Shanghai and Shenzhen when a company is discovered to have filed misleading reports. Before the market reopened to IPOs in January, experts told China Economic Review that a registration system would likely be adopted in March. In late March, the State Council, China’s cabinet, issued a

“Without the postlisting regulatory system, then relaxing the approval system will bring a lot of disasters” - Michael Luk, a Hong Kong-based analyst at investment bank Mizuho document that said it would aim to adopt the registration-based system while also reinforcing the regulation of companies after they go public. But the market can’t have one without the other. If the CSRC lowers the regulatory barriers to entering the market but doesn’t throw the book at cheaters, investors will be more exposed to fraud.

“Without the post-listing regulatory system, then relaxing the approval system will bring a lot of disasters,” Michael Luk, a Hong Kong-based analyst at investment bank Mizuho, said. At the same time, the new registration system will need to make sure that companies that aren’t fit for listing don’t get on the market. Shanghai Chaori defaulted on a corporate bond. However, the company likely should never have been allowed to issue it. The problem demonstrates how regulators struggle to weed out the duds. "When Chaori got into trouble, we found that it probably should have never been allowed to list anyway,” Luk said. “So this is going to be one of the first kind of problems [CSRC] runs into. The transition to the registration system is set to be awkward given the heavy regulation this year. Mainland analysts are hopeful for the new system. However, as the researcher at Zhongcheng said: “The change is still a long way off … Regulation will probably remain tight for now.”

CHILD'S PLAY: Like a parent reluctant to watch their child grow up, China's securities regulator can often seem indifferent to its obligation to ensure that Chinese ﬁrms that go public comply with all the relevant regulations

China Economic Review | May 2014

2014ฤ5Ꮬఓ

管控新金融海外投资浪潮奔腾湾区经济

www.cerchinese.com

ቤ਋‫ފ‬ 36 在水一方

37 ௡ୡ ॖෂ৺ူ 38 管控新金融

જᄌ 40 海外投资浪潮奔腾 42 乱花渐欲迷人眼 43 千金散尽还复来 44 扬帆起航 45 湾区经济

ᓜ౺

ॖෂ৺ူ

46 味觉与感思

਌఼ቤ஘ྌ

ఘᒦਪ 47 说长论短

在水一方

新观察

治水尤须仰仗法治框架下公众参与的力量文 | 海潮

水

是传统文化极其重要的意象之一，

段，达到“拐点”后，随着收入水平大幅

将目光从GDP增长聚焦到治水上来，则已

这兴许缘于华夏文明发端于两大

提升，环境污染就会迎刃而解。这一假说

覆水难收。中国亟需新的“大禹治水”：

水系：黄河和长江。然而，在水资源的滋

为“先污染后治理”提供了理论依据。

从政府、企业到社会公众应紧急动员起

养下，国人也饱受水患之害。因此，历代

当今，更多民众已有了节水意识。

来，关键是转变发展模式、建立治水的体

当权者都重视“治水”，并留下了大禹治

而应对水质困境，大多数城市家庭并无二

制和机制。而于5月1日实施的新环境保护

水的传说，其子姒启则建立了第一个朝代

致：使用净化器或直接购买净水。由于监

法致力于“推动建立基于环境承载能力的

夏朝。可见权力的合法性与“治水”高度

管不力和丧尽天良，一些企业仍在不负责

绿色发展模式”，也明确了公众参与权和

相关。

任地排放废弃物，导致越来越多的水源遭

行政监管的责任。然而，能否严格执法则尚待观察。

今日治水的内涵已不复从前，重点

受污染。而媒体曝光的水污染事件或许只

不在建设水利工程，而在于节约水资源，

是冰山一角。近期有国内媒体引述一位匿

“蒹葭苍苍，白露为霜；所谓伊人，

保护环境，使水源免受污染。近几十年

名学者的话称，水质污染情况属于“国家

在水一方。”（《诗经》）当前，不少人

来，经济高速成长，GDP已跃居全球第

机密”，可能只有一半水源地合格。公众

期待出现普京式的“强人”：对外更强

二，而生存环境则日益恶化。经济发展与

无知情权，舆论监督便无从谈起。无良企

硬，对内则全力打击腐败，解决社会弊端

保护环境似相互抵牾。而环境库兹涅茨曲

业就可以肆无忌惮地排污，权力部门也可

和民生问题。但人治不如法治。治水，尤

线（EKC）则试图说明，环境恶化固然

以袖手旁观。

须仰仗法治框架下公众参与的力量，这才

由经济发展引起，但当经济增长到更高阶

China Economic Review | May 2014

如果要到水危机动摇社会稳定时，才

是在水一方的“伊人”。

聚焦

电商物流产业将一飞冲天

产业与市场

挂时代，货箱和货站管理为成功关键；国

豪。接近一半是汽车制造商，36%是汽车

供应链网络金融大发展

内航空快递运输仍将保持寡头竞争格局；

零售商，其余是做汽车零部件。白手起家

清科数据研究中心《2014年中国供应链

高铁有望成为快递干线运输的重要参与

仅占一半多。汉堡、开罗和孟买是榜单上

金融行业研究报告》指出，作为互联网金

者；跨境出口电商物流一家独大局面不复

最多汽车富豪居住的城市，分别有3位，各

融的创新业务，供应链网络金融正成为银

存在，遭多股力量分食；保税网购呈爆发

占7%；其次各有2位居住在杭州、台湾、

行拓展业务的新蓝海。供应链金融乘互

式增长，有望在跨境进口电商中占得半壁

洛杉矶、首尔和德国沃尔夫斯堡。富豪平

联网金融的东风，也迎来新一轮发展大

江山；针对电商的新业务模式将成为新一

均年龄为64岁。男性占九成多。

潮。2011年中国供应链融资规模5.75万

轮投资热点。罗兰贝格分析认为，在强劲

亿元，2012年达到6.9万亿元，增速约为

消费需求拉动、政策利好、大规模资本涌

沪核心商业物业趋稳定

20%。在产能供应过剩，金融脱媒背景

入推动的合力作用下，国内和跨境电商物

高力国际发布2014年第一季度上海房地

下，银行向消费领域倾斜。截至2012年

流将步入高速增长期，并领跑物流板块。

产市场回顾及展望。季内，上海优质写字楼物业需求保持平稳，核心区域甲级写字

末，主要金融机构及主要农村金融机构、城市信用社和外资银行人民币小微企业贷

中国汽车富豪全球第一

楼整体空置率有所下降，整体租金小幅上

款余额11.58万亿元，同比增长16.6%。

2014胡润汽车家族全球富豪榜显示，全球

涨。在租金增长及去空置化速度方面，浦

引入大型企业商业信用和动产、债权等多

有45位来自13个国家的汽车富豪财富超过

东市场的表现仍优于浦西。上海商铺市场

种工具来解决中小企业的融资难题，无疑

10亿美元（约合人民币60亿元）。中国汽

趋缓，鉴于季内无新项目竣工，整体空置

是供应链金融最大的社会贡献。

车富豪占全球最多，有11位上榜汽车富豪

率小幅回落。在投资市场方面，季内共有

来自中国，占四分之一；其次分别有8位来

三个写字楼整售交易，市内次中心区域以

电商物流或领跑物流板块

自德国和美国，各占18%。宝马创造了全

及成型区域商务园区物业的投资机会受到

罗兰贝格管理咨询公司发布中国电商物流

球汽车首富：三位家族成员共拥有宝马将

越来越多国内外机构投资者的关注。此

行业最新趋势预测：大型电商主导的物流

近一半的股份，总计近2500亿财富。50岁

外，非核心区域购物中心的快速发展也有

网络模式已基本确立，将严重冲击快递商

的长城汽车的魏建军成为全球白手起家汽

望促成更多收购机会。住宅市场方面，受

的全国性电商业务；仓储现代化加速，催

车首富，财富460亿人民币在全球汽车富

高端项目成交占比的增长以及部分中低端

生仓储运营中性服务商，份额有望超过自

豪中排名第5。43岁的南非人，最近被热

项目加推提价影响，上海新建商品住宅成

营仓储；干线物流商和电商快递商跨界竞

议的特斯拉的埃隆·马斯克是胡润全球富

交均价已连续第五个季度呈上升态势。在

争，提供一站式电商解决方案；渠道下沉

豪榜中财富上升最快的，增长3.4倍到395

国内消费的支撑下，上海工业物业市场在

助推区域配送，全国性快递公司和区域配

亿人民币，在全球汽车富豪中排名第7，

季内仍表现平稳，物流物业投资市场亦保

送型公司分食市场；公路干线运输迈入甩

他同时也是全球最年轻的白手起家汽车富

持强劲动能。

China Economic Review | May 2014

封面故事

管控新金融运用市场机制辅以政策监管以促进互联网金融的发展

资人王女士最近有些心力憔悴，此

投

家，行业交易总量高达200多亿元，其中

网的逻辑，这些成本中的绝大多数完全不

前她向一家P2P网贷公司投入了

排名靠前的15家P2P类网站交易额占到整

必发生，互联网金融的理想模式，类似众

100万元人民币，指望着获取高额的收益

个行业的45%，接近70亿元交易额。

筹、P2P这种供给与需求直接交易的方

率。按照协议这些钱都打入了公司董事长

P2P是互联网金融细分领域最受VC/

的个人账户。但随后便传出该董事长卷款

PE关注的地带，最近的负面消息亦让行业

逃跑，这家P2P公司倒闭的噩耗。闻听此

再次陷入争议。富达亚洲合伙人郑之亮认

讯的王女士几乎昏厥过去。幸运的是，该

为，看P2P行业主要看征信和风控，风控

第三方支付行业充当了互联网金融

董事长已被公安部门抓回，目前正在调查

是核心竞争力，而征信体系的成熟和找到

的先锋。清科报告中指出，随着移动通讯

和审理中。

高质量的借贷源其实很难。玖富CEO孙雷

设备的渗透率超过正规金融机构的网点或

也表示，从金融角度来看，核心是要看团

自助设备，及其与互联网和金融的结合，

队的稳健度以及风险管理机制。

全球移动支付交易总金额以年均42%的速

据国内媒体报道，从去年至今年4 月，全国已有超过100家的网贷平台倒闭

式，极大提高了效率，减少了中间环节。

第三方支付起波澜

或出现问题。此现象已引起国家相关部门

针对近期P2P行业暴露出的诸多弊

度增长，2016年将达6169亿美元。据统

的重视并准备出台法律法规。由于目前国

端，好贷网CEO李明顺表示，P2P和众筹

计，2012年中国第三方支付市场整体交

内征信体系仍不完善，部分专家呼吁必须

都是先行者，也是利率市场化的先锋，这

易规模达12.9万亿元，同比增长54.2%，

对互联网的风险控制进行革新，否则信贷

对中国的金融进步有巨大作用，但是也会

其中第三方移动市场交易规模达1511.4亿

类互联网金融模式将岌岌可危。

承担很大的风险。

元。支付宝市场份额居市场首位，并同财

互联网金融风险同样存在于其他模式

清科报告指出，中国金融体系目前

付通、汇付天下、快钱、上海银联、广州

中。清科数据研究中心近期推出的《2014

每年产生3.6万亿的交易成本。按照互联

银联、易宝支付、环迅等企业构成互联网

年中国新金融行业研究报告》首次将互联网金融分类为九大模式，分别为：第三方支付、P2P网络贷款平台、金融大数据、众筹、互联网金融门户、比特币、征信、产业互联网金融及个人理财工具。这些模式在不同的数据处理方式下，可以衍化出无数新金融产品，同时也加大了监管的难度。

利率市场化急先锋 P2P是互联网金融绕不开的话题，这一新事物的出现还早于互联网时代。清科报告指出，截至2012年10月，美国最大的P2P信贷公司Lending Club公司自 2007年成立起共完成了8.3万次交易，涉及金额近10亿美元；美国首家P2P信贷公司Prosper也完成了超过6.4万次的互联网金融交易，涉及金额4.2亿美元，每年增长一倍以上。而国内P2P的数量也是强劲上升。清科私募通数据显示，截至2012年 12月底，全国P2P信贷公司总共超过300

China Economic Review | May 2014

信贷类互联网金融潜藏着高风险移动互联营销的爆发式增长推动消费者的行为方式发生嬗变

管控新金融

支付竞争的第一梯队。

去年腾讯微信支付已超过阿里支付宝

不了解金融行业，因此在极大创新了金融

易宝支付CEO唐彬表示，支付是基

成为用户选择的第一大支付工具。阿里采

业态的同时，也造成了一定的监管真空和

础的金融服务，网络支付即是基础的互联

取了多项政策，如通过淘宝屏蔽微信二维

风险隐患，如果不重视系统风险发生的可

网金融。互联网已进入深水区，并开始打

码；商城禁挂二维码图片；关闭手机淘宝

能性，就会持续发生如去年底集中爆发的

破通信、金融等行业的垄断。中国经济要

的微信通道。去年11月底，支付宝官方宣

P2P非法集资事件。清科报告指出，发展

成功转型，作为血液的金融必须首先转

布支付宝在PC端原有的免费转账额度将取

互联网需要规则和监管，如对新浪微博与

型。而支付企业在互联网金融大潮中一定

消，按每笔交易收费。清科报告指出，这

淘宝网的治理。同样，新金融产业亟需匹

会发挥举足轻重的作用。

些管制性政策举措与支付宝创立之初，带

配合理的监管制度。一方面，通过引导给

第三方支付最近也成为风暴中心，央

着互联网服务长尾特性，极度重视客户体

予传统金融创新空间，激发创新积极性，

行先后发紧急文件叫停支付宝、腾讯的虚

验的精神，有点背道而驰。互联网企业的

加快信息网络技术和金融业务的结合；另

拟信用卡产品和条码支付等面对面支付服

特性在于不断创新以及对客户体验的深度

一方面，制订针对性监管制度，尊重互联

务，并处罚支付机构。

挖掘，当创造能力不足，对客户的粘性不

网金融自身规律的同时，保证资金安全和防范风险。

全国人大财经委副主任委员吴晓灵

足时，其生命力将不再。这就是当金融与

在中国发展高层论坛2014年会上对此表

互联网结合后，创新性会无限增大，而系

态称，监管层的初衷主要是从客户资金安

统性风险也会无限增大的原因。

度应如现代企业制度所要求的明晰有效。通过委托代理来。经营的传统金融行业，

全、监测资金流、维护社会经济秩序等三个方面考虑。监管当局出台政策，不是着

清科报告还指出，金融系统的激励制

市场机制辅以监管

其代理人目标与委托人目标并不契合，很

眼于动了谁的奶酪，而是看这项业务对货

传统金融监管过严，导致金融系统

难形成“激励相容”。产权往往是最重要

币创造、客户资金安全、社会经济秩序的

的创新能力不足，对客户的需求十分不敏

的激励因素，产权分配方式决定了代理人

影响。

感。新金融的监管制度应根据不同业务性

的行为。只有在清楚明晰地界定产权，使

唐彬认为，各类企业都希望互联网金

质和风险水平，以透明化、市场化和规范

成员间、成员与制度间目标一致时，才能

融健康发展，只是参考系不同。支付行业

化为方向，兼顾创新与监管。新金融的去

更好地实现局部利益与整体利益、长远利

是互联网金融的核心，其发展与互联网金

中心化、交互性、服务长尾，注重创新和

益与短期利益的协调，有效提高激励相容

融的发展息息相关。

体验，可以弥补传统金融的不足。但由于

度。传统金融在竞争加剧时，仍未被激发出应有的活力，主因在于市场竞争的外在压力，没转换成追求利润的内在动力。新金融产业要在清晰界定产权的基础上，形成互联网化的激励结构。对于支付宝、余额宝、理财通等互联网金融产品，《互联网金融》一书作者罗明雄表示，理应在便捷度和安全之间寻求平衡，他认为互联网金融的本质仍然是金融，应当启用适度监管，即找到风险与创新之间的平衡点。该平衡点需要监管层、从业者、用户共同思考和体验。清科研究中心认为，目前对于互联网金融行业发展所带来的价值有着充分的肯定，但对其行业所潜在的风险，政府在监管方式上存在一定顾虑。希望能运用市场机制，优胜劣汰，同时辅以政策监管并行的方式，促进互联网金融行业健康有序地发展。新生事物都会有两面性，互联网金融亦然。以之为核心的新金融时代已然开

第三方支付最近成为风暴中心

启，颠覆与融合将难以避免。

China Economic Review | May 2014

话题

海外投资浪潮奔腾新政策将鼓舞更多中国资本走出去

跨境投资是中国企业的饕餮盛宴么

中

国跨境投资总量持续攀升，由

至10亿美元。须获国务院审批的海外投资

投资的中国企业产生积极影响：通过缩短

2008年约6900万美元增至2013年

额已从2亿美元提升至20亿美元。海外投

审批时长（过去长达6个月），企业的整体

逾160亿美元，5年间暴增了230倍，增幅

资项目不再被区分为资源类和非资源类。

成本将被降低。这与2013年三中全会所传

之巨令人咋舌。在发展商及投资者均通过

所有涉及敏感国家和地区、敏感行业的境

达的信息相一致，政府与市场之间的关系

海外市场较高收益率、国内政策环境以及

外投资项目，现须由国家发改委提出审核

将得以规范化，并由此赋予私有企业在经

发展国际业务和品牌形象之机遇获利的背

意见报国务院核准。大规模土地开发现被

济中更重要的角色。

景下，发布上述数据的高力国际预计，跨

归为一种敏感行业，且须国家发改委和国

境投资规模在今年还会翻番。

务院核准。

房地产资金出海

国家发改委于今年4月10日为拟进行

高力国际将这项旨在放宽海外投资

近年国内房地产行业持续低迷，中

海外投资的中国企业颁布了《境外投资项

的新政策视为中国走出去战略中鼓舞人心

国企业为求发展，加大开拓海外房地产市

目核准和备案管理办法》，该政策主要涵

的一步。在此次新政策中被归为敏感投资

场。根据私募通统计，今年3月海外房地产

盖了申请流程、须获国家级审核的投资金

的“大规模土地开发”未被明确定义，且

行业比较活跃，绿地集团以4亿加元（约

额等管理条例，并明确将“大规模土地开

该政策并未包含投资现有房地产项目（相

3.64亿美元）成功受让多伦多商住项目；

发”作为须直接由国家发改委和国务院审

对购地开发而言）的相关规定。

大连万达集团股份有限公司以2.6亿欧元

批的敏感行业。主要变化包括：须获发改

在更宏观的层面上，高力国际预计这

（约3.62亿美元）收购西班牙大厦；中国

委审批的海外投资额已从3000万美元提升

些减少整体市场监管的举措将对拟在海外

信达资产管理股份有限公司子公司Cindat

China Economic Review | May 2014

话题

Capital Management以3亿美元成功受让

际报告指出，因为楼市相对透明，美国、

来越多的投资者涉足跨境投资，尝试多元

芝加哥写字楼70%股权。

英国及澳大利亚的主要门户城市在过去的

化的投资模式以寻求更高的投资回报。”

高力国际亚洲区资本市场及投资服务

五年内是中国发展商及投资者跨境投资的

董事总经理邓文杰表示：“中国的房地产

首选地。而在下一波海外投资热潮中，发

跨境投资仅仅处于起步阶段，展望未来，

展商及投资者将扩大其在门户城市中的覆

根据私募通统计，今年3月共完成19

我们相信将有更多中国发展商涉足海外市

盖范围：例如向曼哈顿市中心或东伦敦等

起跨国并购，其中海外并购15起，外资并

场。在人民币预期进一步升值以及房地产

地投资，或向门户城市附近符合其投资需

购4起。3月跨国并购案例16起披露金额的

收益需求持续增长的推动下，该投资规模

求的城市扩张，譬如西雅图及波士顿等。

总额为35.63亿美元。（见表）

在2014年将会翻番。”

海外并购整合对策

高力国际认为，中国发展商的跨境

随着越来越多中国企业通过并购实

高力国际华东及西南区、中国投资服

投资大多始于住宅领域，随着经济的逐步

现全球化海外扩张，专业化的并购后整合

务董事总经理翁琳女士表示：“跨境发展

复苏及投资需求的不断增加，商业地产、

(PMI)对于最大程度获取并购价值的作用日

商及机构投资者将目光投向海外市场主要

甚至包括酒店等在内的非传统物业也将受

益凸显。在目前的中国企业海外并购实践

有三个考量因素：提高收益率、实现投资

到越来越多的关注。未来几年里，跨境投

中，相当多的收购效果并不佳，其主要表

多元化以及树立国际品牌形象。”

资的物业类型和投资模式也将越来越多元

现在企业收购后不能有效整合，获得预期

化，发展商将从相对直接的资产收购向项

的收购价值。

“在政府维持房地产调控并放宽海外房地产投资的政策环境下，欧美地区当

翁琳总结道：“随着海外投资经验的

场价值与并购溢价之加总，然而，能否

累积，中国投资者将越来越有自信，对风

兑现并购溢价，关键就看企业在收购后

险的承受能力也将有所提升。今后将有越

如何进行整合，获得协同价值。“遗憾的

前的经济复苏为跨境投资提供了完美的时机”翁琳补充道。下一波境外投资将去向何方？高力国

收购价值理论上是指被收购企业市

目开发进行转变。

是，由于缺乏专业化的PMI方法的指导，

2014年03月跨国并购案例列表（去除关联交易）并购方

被并购方

经验不足的中国企业往往无法获得到海外收购的全部价值。”罗兰贝格合伙人夷萍

公司

行业

公司

行业

并购金额 (US$M)

中粮集团

农/林/牧/渔

Nidera

农/林/牧/渔

1,200.00

首创集团

房地产

Transpacific New Zealand

清洁技术

774.62

绿地集团

房地产

多伦多商住项目

房地产

363.77

针对于此，罗兰贝格整理了该段时

万达

房地产

西班牙大厦

房地产

362.24

中国信达

金融

芝加哥写字楼

房地产

间内30多个不同制造领域的中国企业海外

300.00

联合利华

其他

沁园集团

机械制造

收购案例，并对其并购后整合进行分析发

297.64

复星国际

其他

BHF-BANK

金融

136.29

鹏欣集团

其他

新莱特农场

农/林/牧/渔

71.85

广联达

Progman Oy

24.88

株式会社日立制作所

机械制造

日立泵制造

机械制造

21.19

业环境还缺乏足够了解。加上对并购、并

凌华科技

电子及光电设备

PENTA

电子及光电设备

7.40

购后重组的经验缺乏，双重挑战使得许多

博深实业

清洁技术

阿联酋CHINA MALL项目

连锁及零售

1.30

企业即使有强烈的投资意愿，也常常不知

茂硕电源

电子及光电设备

Brilliant Info

机械制造

1.00

赣锋锂业

清洁技术

加拿大国际锂业

能源及矿产

0.34

中华救援

生物技术/医疗健康

华援救护

生物技术/医疗健康

0.20

罗兰贝格发布的一份提出了中国企

丽盛集团

房地产

海润电力

清洁技术

0.08

业海外并购后整合的六大关键要素：适应

正泰太阳能

清洁技术

红杉药业

生物技术/医疗健康

卡迪姆

生物技术/医疗健康

合适的整合程度，管理被收购公司相关

吉利集团

汽车

绿宝石电动汽车

汽车

利益方的心理，应用系统化的PMI管理流

来源：私募通 2014.04

Conergy旗下法兰克福的组件业务

说。根据罗兰贝格的调查，2008至2013 年间海外并购规模超过1亿美元中国企业中，33%的企业之前没有真正的并购经验，80%没有海外收购记录。

现，中国企业海外并购后整合的困难主要来自于陌生的商业环境和陌生的管理技能两大方面问题。“中国企业的海外项目运作历史比较短，也就造成他们对欧美的商

道如何去做。”罗兰贝格执行总监诺可言 (Christian Neuner)解释道。

新的商业环境，建立可行的并购后整合目标，打造具备国际业务能力的团队，选择

程。这些均可资借鉴。

China Economic Review | May 2014

话题

乱花渐欲迷人眼探索女性APP市场崛起的现状和未来走势

动互联网热潮兴起后，催生了新经

移

为，目前主流女性工具APP已通过精准定

市场或电子商务市场的一个特点，就是开

济群体：她们经济独立，消费需求

位聚拢了一定规模的用户，未来将利用现

始回归到用户本源并贯穿于运营过程中。

和消费能力快速增长，同时热爱生活、享

有用户资源，进一步探索基于女性细分市

易观调研发现，晚上8到12点是移动

受生活，她们的心情也是三分天注定七分

场的商业模式。市场定位明确便于精准化

购物的黄金时段，而晚上10点到12点是最

靠shopping，她们能给商家带来颇丰的收

营销，从而提高营销的效果与价值，最终

敏感时段，移动互联网网民在入睡前的这

益，也在慢慢改变着市场格局。易观智库

实现流量的变现。

段时间精神状态是最放松的。互联网营销

高级分析师董旭围绕着女性APP应用市场崛起的现状和未来趋势进行了探讨。

移动互联网市场规模去年已达2000

企业会将一些感性的内容、资讯、广告在

多亿，其中近60%是移动购物的贡献。而

这个时间段播出。而移动购物更甚，当用

去年底，易观智库对移动互联网用

女性移动购物网民比例逐渐加大，占比已

户足够感性时，更容易促进或者触动交易

户做了调研，结果发现，在6.52亿移动互

接近50%。移动电商APP已成女性购物新

的达成。

联网网民中，女性用户占到37%。而在

宠，原因在于：女性经济实力不断提升；

针对崛起的女性应用市场，很多厂商

家庭中，女性不一定直接下单或成交，却

移动电商促销活动增加，吸引女性消费者

开始设计各种APP，从生理健康，到美容

是缴费的决策者。从年龄结构来看，还是

参与；APP应用增加与女性的关联度，从

工具，到购物，到食谱类应用，来吸引女

以年轻用户为主流群体。数据显示，目前

UI设计、品类陈列等方面增加感官影响，

性用户关注和使用。

最受女性欢迎的APP主要集中于几个类

取悦女性。易观数据显示，唯品会86%都

商家也开始针对女性采用各种营销手

型：30%是女性健康类APP，25%属于图

是女性用户，掌上1号店、乐蜂网、美丽

段。满足女性用户移动购物需要借力“男

片处理类，包括拍照等应用，20%是移动

说、蘑菇街、聚美优品的女性用户占比均

神”，形成女粉丝经济链条，比如三八妇

购物类，10%是食谱，移动音乐占5%。

超70%。

女节，淘宝用韩国明星李敏镐代言，搞粉

女性健康成为关注的话题，这基于女

在易观智库的研究中，还将女性分成

丝经济，还有最近《来自行星的你》男主

性社会地位的强势提升。女性健康类APP

不同的N类，比如大学生还是白领用户，

角来中国做广告。唯品会千万巨资网络独

从今年开始是创业团队较关注的，还包括

白领用户按偏好分为运动类、时尚类或是

家冠名《我是歌手II》，并同步推出张亮代

育儿和母婴APP产品。易观智库分析认

偏重职业化类。董旭表示，今天移动购物

言的《我是买手》，利用张亮的高人气和影响力，赢得众多女粉丝的力捧。董旭表示，依靠企业和服务商推动的购物节现象会越来越多，但企业也应考虑其风险：人为制造的购物节根基比较薄弱，不如传统节日底蕴深厚。从女性APP应用市场来看，一端是营销，一端是直接交易，营销端面临着很多困境。去年中国互联网广告市场将近1000 个亿，移动端只有几十亿的水平。董旭认为，在不同的时点，推送不同的内容和产品，能够行之有效地触发用户达成交易，或者触发用户交易行为呈现出效果，而针对女性用户的推进更具市场潜力和价值，因此建议企业更多关注这一领域。而在营销上，试图通过移动端的推进去影响女性用户和受众，困难会更大，并且看不到未

女顾客正在使用支付宝的声波售货设备购物

China Economic Review | May 2014

来会有明显的转变。

话题

千金散尽还复来亟待通过国际合作重建全球货币新秩序文 | 博猷针”。他认为，美国评判这个问题一直以来依据的就是：在任何给定时点，究竟是固定汇率还是浮动汇率能够使美元更有竞争力。今天美国关于债权国需要进行调整的许多论调与20世纪40年代凯恩斯和破产的英国所持观点如出一辙，而中国则采纳了当年美国谈判方怀特所持的观点，即债务国必须进行调整。当年英国谈判代表凯恩斯曾提出采用 30种有代表性的商品作为定值基础建立国际货币单位bancor的设想。在提出整体改革并重塑国际货币体系的建议时，中国央行行长周小川就曾指出，以怀特方案为基础的布雷顿森林体系的崩溃显示凯恩斯方案可能更有远见，希望创造“新的稳定的以及安全的国际储备货币”。今年以来美国经济稳步复苏，在不远的将来会走出衰退期。“历史与今天的能否建立一种新的国际货币单位来取代美元

相似之处显然令人着迷，并且时常发人深省。尽管如此，也不应夸大这种相似之

2008年起，中国成为美国最大债

从

国货币与美元挂钩，实行固定但可调整汇

处。”斯泰尔写道，“美国仍然在用自己

主，截至今年2月，共持有美国

率以及经常项目可兑换的战后国际货币秩

印刷的钞票支付账单，美元占据了全球外

21.6%的国债，超过1.2万亿美元。中国和

序，又被称为“布雷顿森林货币体系”。

汇储备的60%。而对于中国无意摧毁其积

美国是否愿意、是否能够或者是否应该被

布雷顿森林会议是自1919年巴黎和

累的巨额美元资产的全球购买力，并且这

纳入“新的布雷顿森林体系”，从而使货

会以来最重要的国际会议，世界最大债权

么做毫无益处。因此，双方都不认为有迫

币秩序根据当前的经济和政治现实重新调

国的美国试图借最大债务国英国濒临破产

切的必要性来解决各自对不公平以及对当

整？历史再次走到了特殊时刻：世界如何

之机，按照美国的利益重塑第二次世界大

前体制的抱怨。”

重新建立国际货币新秩序？人民币有能力

战后世界经济和政治秩序。会议的核心主

当今各国都认识到协调国际经济政

挑战美元的主导地位么？

题是停止货币战争，调和债权国与债务国

策的重要性，纷纷呼吁重建国际货币新秩

的利益冲突和矛盾，这些至今仍是国际货

序。“他们所设想的，并不是回到1944年

币基金组织和20国集团会议的重要议题。

在布雷顿森林所设立的那个体制，而是希

美国外交关系学会国际经济部主任、高级研究员斯泰尔（Benn

Steil）撰写了

一部讲述美元与英镑决斗的著作《布雷顿

2008年后，美国金融危机和欧债

望通过国际合作建立一种真正的国际货币

森林货币战》，还原了70年前在布雷顿

危机爆发，美国想逼迫人民币升值。斯

和金融秩序，就像凯恩斯当年所设想的那

森林举行货币峰会的情景。1944年7月

泰尔指出，对于中国采取固定汇率的做

样。”该书中文译者符荆捷如此写道。

1日，44个国家的730名代表齐聚于此讨

法，2009年美国财长提名人盖特纳暗示称

斯泰尔则断言：“如果世界在很短时

论战后国际货币安排。各方达成协议，按

中国是货币“操纵者”；而1998年亚洲

间内将要走向新的全球货币体系，那么这

照美国谈判代表怀特的计划，设立国际货

金融危机时，美国财长鲁宾却公开称赞中

一局面更有可能是各种磕磕碰碰和无所作

币基金组织，确立了美元与黄金挂钩、各

国是“一片动荡区域中一根重要的定海神

为的结果，而非出于达成了某种协议。”

China Economic Review | May 2014

话题

扬帆起航中产阶层对于小船艇的市场需求开始启动

团、Sunreef、SUNSEEKER、Azimut 等，以及太阳鸟、红双喜、毅宏、佳豪、妮_尔芙、晶华、珐伊等纷纷亮相。国际游艇展水上展区于4月10日在虹口北外滩上海国际航运服务中心登场，今年在北外滩公平路码头旁新建的游艇港池 1期正式启用，可同时停靠37艘最长26米的游艇。为缓解黄浦江水域艇游艇“买得起、没处停”的尴尬，游艇港池还将扩建 2期，2016年竣工后可满足100多艘艇停靠，成为浦江上最大的游艇“避风港”。上海国际航运服务中心位于虹口北外滩核心地域，是与陆家嘴、老外滩成三足鼎立之势的新的城市黄金CBD，一大特色是建造有魅力独具的游艇港池，将浦江水直接引至建筑脚下，现代的办公建筑群与游艇港池智能互动，形成舒适微气候停泊在上海国际航运服务中心港池里的游艇

环境，节能智慧环保。赏心悦目的游艇港池，宽敞舒适的公共空间，是举办文化休

这

是个阳光明媚、春风和煦的休息

他指出：“美国私人船艇并非是炫

闲旅游活动的绝佳场所。北外滩滨江两公

天，在外资公司工作的白领李先生

富和攀比身价的工具，更多是被看作中产

里岸线上正在打造上海的“星光大道”，

带着一家三口来到黄浦江畔的游艇码头，

阶层及以上家庭的休闲娱乐工具。”据介

将建设成全新的城市文化中心地带，成为

兴高采烈地登上一艘小型游艇，悠闲自得

绍，美国常年保有的1850万条游艇中94%

星外滩文化休闲游艇基地。

地泛舟于浦江之上，其乐融融。目前，这

是8米以下的小型游艇，豪华大型游艇只占

上海能否成为首个获准开展游艇“自

一幕还只是“幻想”，但在未来几年很可

6%，超过70%的玩船人是工薪阶层和青

由行”的城市？上海海事局表示，年内将

能会成为现实。

年爱好者。由此可见，游艇市场的消费结

在南浦大桥和卢浦大桥之间探索“游艇自

构分为不同的层次，中小船艇的消费需求

由区”方案。尽管离付诸实施尚存距离，

应受到重视。

也只是时间问题。目前，全国已有近90个

最新数据显示，在第十九届中国国际船艇及技术设备展览会暨2014中国

（上海）国际游艇展上，小型船艇的展出

中国（上海）国际游艇展历来被视为

游艇码头在建，仅上海就占到10个，且覆

数量有了大幅度提升，8米以下船艇的数量

中国游艇风向标，已成为亚洲规模最大、

盖江河湖海各大纬度，为申城玩船者拓展

更是相较去年出现43%的增长。从价格来

中国历史最悠久的综合性游艇展会，至今

了空间。

看，10万左右的中低价位小型游艇较受欢

已是第19个年头。据不完全统计，本次

2014中国游艇报告显示，2013年

迎，售价10多万元的钓鱼艇和几千元的小

展会接待来自70个国家地区的海内外观

中国游艇产业整体规模达到41.5亿元。从

型皮划艇被纷纷下单买走。

众，总参展人数和成交额与往年相比均有

今年起，中国游艇产业将保持每年不低于

“作为成熟化的游艇展会，小型船

所增长，稳中有升。共有来自美国、意大

30%的市场增长率，未来5年，保守估计

艇的展出比例大幅度提升，是顺应游艇行

利、日本、西班牙、英国等20个国家550

市场规模将超过150亿元，而自用小游艇

业自身发展趋势的表现。”美国船舶制造

家展商，550条实船参展，更有7大国家

将成为游艇市场的主旋律。预示着越来越

商协会（NMMA）总裁达姆里奇（Thom

地区展团助阵。国内外著名游艇品牌法拉

多的中等收入群体将会拥有中小船艇，这

Dammrich）表示。

帝、博纳多、亚诺、HEESEN、宾士域集

一市场需求已经开始启动。

China Economic Review | May 2014

话题

湾区经济上海将如何成为全球第9个湾区

区经济得名于美国旧金山湾区。而

湾

金山-硅谷湾区的成功经验。首先是加州拥

土地还有11平方公里。据统计，区域内坐

旧金山-硅谷城市群，可以说是当

有众多大学：加州大学伯克利分校、加州

落着14所各类高等院校，100余家科研院

今世界经济形态的龙头。80年时间里，旧

大学旧金山分校、戴维斯分校、斯坦福大

所、10个国家重点实验室、10个全军重点

金山产业发展以硅谷中心，而硅谷则以斯

学都聚集在湾区。很多高校毕业生留在湾

实验室、1个国家工程研究中心和1个国家

坦福大学为中心，现在已经形成人才、科

区创业，他们将研发技术商业化，创办企

工程技术研究中心。另外，目前杨浦已建

技、创业资本三个要素集聚的经济体。而

业，湾区因而出现很多高科技创业企业。

成20家科技园区，其中7家为国家级大学

第四个重要产业：财富管理，则又可以反

加州大学系统的科技发明和专利数量，湾

科技园，9家科技园区、专业软件园和科技

哺当地的高科技业，让整个经济体成为可

区占据了很大部分。美国国家实验室大部

创业服务中心，科技园区总面积达150万

以自我生长的生态体系。同时，旧金山湾

分都聚集在湾区。很多世界五百强企业内

平方米。还有正在打造的科技金融服务业

区经济具有开放的经济结构、高效的资源

部研究机构也都在湾区。湾区已成为世界

集聚区和上海国际技术产权和资本交易集

配置能力、强大的集聚外溢功能、发达的

级研发中心，吸引了很多总部不在湾区，

聚区，促进科技与企业对接。这些教育及

国际交往网络，是世界一流城市的典范。

甚至总部在海外的企业都到湾区设立研发

科研资源集群，对于将要打造的湾区，提

而上海在长江三角洲出海口的优越地理位

中心。科技发展还需要投资资本，而美国

供了完善的高端科研支持。

置、科研机构集群和高端金融服务业，正

35%-40%的风险投资资金都聚集在湾

作为首批国家创新型试点城区，杨浦

是上海发展湾区经济的底气。

区。湾区成功就是缘于创业文化，人们对

的创新创业气息非常浓厚，近5年来已经有

风险以及失败的容忍度非常高。旧金山-硅

3000多家企业成功创业。所以，从各种条

谷湾区因而成为全球领先的创新中心。

件上来说，如果说上海类似旧金山，那么

上海将如何成为全球第9个湾区？这是一个富有挑战性的话题，由诺亚财富主办、杨浦区市政府支持的2014中国湾区财智论坛对此进行了讨论。

杨浦区是上海唯一集百年学府、百年工业和百年市政于一身的城区，城区面积

杨浦最具有发展成硅谷的相似条件，包括硅谷发展的源动力—创业与创新精神。

美国湾区委员会全球事务拓展官德尔

达到60平方公里，是上海中心城区中最大

诺亚财富董事局主席汪静波表示，财

（Del Christensen）介绍了美国加州旧

的一个。同时，杨浦具有可资利用潜力的

富管理行业是高端金融服务行业，在一个国家进入后工业化时代，一大批企业家和家族先富起来以后，才会繁荣和发展。充裕的个人资本被财富管理行业转换成金融资本。而财富管理行业一旦成形之后，将会形成强劲和持续的输血能力，推动整个国家产业的发展和升级。所以，财富管理行业也被誉为“创造繁荣的旋转门”。财富管理行业的繁荣，同样意味着国家的繁荣。创业十年来，诺亚财富已经形成1170 亿的财富管理规模，以及在57个城市80个分公司的庞大全国网点。同样，一个城市财富管理行业的繁荣，直接影响着这个城市的经济活力。某种程度上来说，以上海为全国总部的诺亚财富的发展，直接与上海的发展，中国的发展息息相关、紧密挂钩。所以，对于上海的产业升级和经济发展，下一步将走向何方，总部设在上海的

首届中国财智（上海）湾区论坛

诺亚财富也会同样关心。

China Economic Review | May 2014

专栏

味觉与感思可以将注重味觉的中国传统文化称为“感文化” 文 | 海风

许能从西方的视觉哲学中找到答案。古希腊是以几何解决代数问题，而解析几何则是用代数方法来解决几何问题。笛卡尔创立解析几何就是为了能用代数方法来精确地“看清楚”几何问题。无论是味还是感，中国文化的普遍性追求是模糊的，很难用数据精准衡量。正如中国传统食谱会写上“盐少许”，但具体是多少，只能依靠厨师的经验和感觉。然而，从另一个角度看，古代中国也创造出很多精密的物质文化，很多令人惊叹的建筑和桥梁，如历经一千多年而不垮的赵州桥就是一例。显然，仅靠感思是无法创造出物质化奇迹的。不过这样的物质成就已属于“技”与“艺”的范畴，文人士大一缕馨香一丝回味

夫往往不屑为之。新文化运动以来，中国传统思想遭

电

视纪录片《舌尖上的中国》赢得了

他。”法国现象学家乔纳斯甚至断言“因

到清算。当今主流思潮已更偏向于沉思文

颇高的收视率，这一介绍各地美食

为视觉所及之处，心灵必能到达”。

化。贡近南指出，当前的哲学应解决的问

的片子还吸引了几千万网民的关注。中国

作者从哲学生成层面对中西方哲学

题是：如何将每个人塑造成兼具沉思主体

人向来对美食情有独钟，还特别注重食物

的普遍性追求作出了区分：西方哲学在生

与感思主体于一身的存在者。他如此写

的口味，个种原因何在？在《味与味道》

存论上以视觉的看为优先，导致了西方哲

道：“这样的存在者，在他需要感思的时

一书中，似乎找到了“哲学依据”。该书

学的沉思。而中国哲学在生存论上以整个

候，他能悬置更具有科学性的看而去感与

作者贡华南从学术角度深入探讨了中国哲

人的感为优先，由此则生发出中国哲学的

感思。在他需要看清楚的时候，他能悬置

学中味、感、象的概念和特征，有助于理

感思。

善感之心而去看与沉思。”

解中国哲学的生成和普遍性追求。作者认

咸味是重要的味觉，作者认为“咸

换而言之，好比某人既能将事业经

为，古希腊传统追求形式性、抽象性，因

是一种能独立存在的味道”，进而将咸味

营得风生水起，也懂得吟风弄月，感时伤

而重视觉，而中国思想传统更重味觉。由

与感紧紧地联系起来。这样就将话题从味

事。后者在当下这个浮躁的物质化时代，

此观之，中国人重视吃似乎可从传统哲学

延伸到了感。贡华南揭示出两者的根本差

尤为稀缺和可贵。今天，人们往往会嘲

的生成中找到思想渊源。

异：“与西方哲学优先发展起来的沉思不

笑“你幸福吗？”之类的提问，因为幸福

西方哲学为何青睐视觉？作者引述了

同，中国哲学优先发展了以感为基础的感

是个人感觉，无法用人均GDP之类的数据

西方哲学家的一些论断。古希腊哲学家柏

思之路。这里的所谓感，不是指一些特定

来描述。然而精确到小数点之后好几位的

拉图说过：“视觉是给我们带来大福气的

的身体器官，而是以身体、精神相统一

数据就真的可信么？

通道。如果我们没有见过星辰、太阳、天

的‘整个的人’为承担者。西方哲学的看

有别于上几代中国学者对于中西哲

空，那么，我们前面关于宇宙的说法一个

将世界推远，而中国传统的感则将世界拉

学不是抑此扬彼就是扬此抑彼的两极化思

字也说不出来……于是，我们就开始有哲

近，将重感特征的中国文化称为‘感文

维，《味与味道》并未在沉思与感思之间

学。”亚里士多德也说：“人们甚至离开

化’似乎更为妥当。”

分出高低。这是一种相对客观的态度，亦

实用而喜爱感觉本身，喜爱视觉尤胜于其

China Economic Review | May 2014

近代自然科学为何诞生在西欧？也

或是年轻学者对于前辈的一种超越。

看中国

说长论短中国人往往喜欢采用短期战略文 | 晏格文 (Graham Earnshaw)

西

方人与中国人的处世之道全然不

人有意或无意受到基督教及某种信仰的影

诸多复杂问题。但在我看

同，这从处理问题时倾向采用短

响—上帝已经安排好了一切？或仅仅是

来，更多例子显示中国人

期策略抑或长期措施中便可看出。这种差

出于一种无所顾忌的态度。

往往喜欢采用短期战略，

异的存在往往体现在政府或个人的行为和

无论背后原因是什么，相比之下中国

无论是身居高位的官员、

态度当中，让人颇为费解，却也十分有意

人普遍排斥负债。从西方人角度来说，这

腰缠万贯的商贾，还是我

思。当然世事无绝对，要是没有特殊和一

是十分明智的做法（我本人基本无负债，

身边熟人无不如此行事。

般之分，那生活将是多么无趣。

这确实也是受中国人理财观念的影响）。

官员通常被动地做出

首先就个人而言，中国人和美国人在

然而目前澳门博彩行业的规模已超出

决定，目的是为了绕开问

银行存款数额上差异巨大，当然赢家必定

拉斯维加斯很多倍。博彩是诸多中国人精

题而非从长远解决它们。

是前者。从另一个方面来看，中国人信用

神生活的重要组成部分，这种喜好似乎与

企业则似乎以快速致富和急流勇退作为经

卡的欠债水平亦远远低于美国等西方国家

生俱来。较之西方人，他们往往也更乐于

营目标。中国员工更是以爱跳槽而闻名，

（尽管前者一直处于上升态势，后者已在

将一生的赌注都压在大转盘上。这种想法

他们往往不安于现状，更不会考虑长期服

近几年有所下降）。

为何与前述在财务上的小心谨慎背道而驰

务于一家公司能带来多少益处，导致简历

呢？事实上，并非偶然，这只是当今社会

上满是短期的就职经历。

与中国人相比，美国人（在此我将美国人作为西方人代表进行阐述）在经济问

中普遍存在的诸多怪象之一。

晏格文

这类现象是否在某种程度上深植于华

题上通常采用“得过且过”的办法。原因

人们常说中国社会（包括许多官员）

夏文化和中国人的心理呢，或仅仅是作为

何在？是不是因为西方国家的社会保障体

整体而言都喜欢长远考虑问题，这话不

对今日社会现象的一种回应？短期来看，

系较中国更为完善可信？是不是因为美国

假，毕竟他们不需要受制于西方体制中的

我恐怕难以回答。

很多中国员工以热衷跳槽为能事

China Economic Review | May 2014

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Beijing

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369 Xian Xia Road, Chang Ning

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China 310007

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Chaoyang, Beijing 100020

Shanghai 200063

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Beijing

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30/F Golden Bell Plaza, 98

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China Economic Review | May 2014

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FEBRUARY 2014 VOL. 25, NO. 2

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