China's struggling smaller firms

They do more for China’s economy than big firms—but get less help
为了中国经济，他们付出的比大公司多，却得不到什么资助。 Surviving through the ages—but without much help
在艰难岁月中求生——但受助有限
 CHINA’S massive, state-backed firms are becoming ever more visible on the world stage, but the country can trace a great deal of its recent economic success to countless small and medium enterprises. Today, as China continues to grapple with the effects of the global slowdown, these smaller firms are enduring a large share of the economic pain.

中国的大型国有公司在世界舞台上越来越引人瞩目，但是这个国家不少的经济成就可以追溯至无数的中小型企业。如今，中国不断努力免受全球经济放缓影响之时，这些中小企业正承受太多经济衰退之痛。

Virtually non-existent in 1979 when China took its first steps away from central-planning orthodoxy, its smaller companies numbered around 1m by 1990 and 8m by 2001. Today they total around 60m. The smallest have just a handful of workers, and the largest of the medium-sized ones, according to the government’s definitions, employ no more than 2,000 people. Yet together they account for 60% of China’s GDP and half its tax revenues. More than 95% are privately owned and, since they are largely free of the political and bureaucratic friction that plagues larger enterprises, they are among the most creative and nimble of China’s economic actors. They are responsible for 66% of the country’s patent applications and more than 80% of its new products.

实际上当1979年中国迈出背离中央计划这一正统观念的第一步时，一家小公司也没有，而到1990年就已达到100万家，2001年是800万家。现在已有约6000万家。最小的公司只有几名员工，而根据政府所下定义，最大的中型公司员工不超过2000人。尽管如此，他们加起来占中国国内生产总值的60%，税收总额的二分之一。95%以上都是私有企业，因为他们不会像大型公司那样遭受被政治和官僚约束之苦，所以他们在中国经济发展中扮演了最富创造力、最灵活多变的角色。他们占据了中国66%的专利申请和超过80%的新品生产。

They are also responsible for 68% of China’s exports, and it is this last figure that has made the current hard times especially difficult for them, as foreign demand has sagged. China has long sought to rebalance its export-driven economy toward a greater role in supplying domestic consumption, and if declining demand in America and other big export markets helps prod it along that path, that will represent a silver lining to the current gloom.

他们还占据了中国68%的出口，这还是在外需减少，当前艰难局势尤其对他们形成困难时的最新数字。中国长期以来都在努力重新平衡外向型经济，使其在供应内需方面起到更大作用，这样一旦美国及其它大型出口市场需求下降，就会促使他们转向国内，这样在当前的萧条中才能看到一线生机。

In the short term, however, smaller firms’ fortunes are lagging. An alarming set of official figures showed that the consumption of power by China’s smallest industrial enterprises declined by half in the first half of this year. Only after recovery will it be clear whether this reflects widespread devastation among small industrial firms, or simply a prudent tendency to slow production temporarily in the hope of surviving the crisis.

然而短期内中小企业的资金不足。官方发布的一组数字非常惊人——中国的微型工业企业今年上半年能源消耗量减少了一半。只有在经济复苏之后，才能清楚地看到，经济衰退是让小型工业企业蒙受了损失，还是在经济复苏的美好愿景下，仅暂时稍稍放缓了生产。

But it is China’s labour-intensive smaller firms rather than its energy-intensive ones that most depend on exports, and there is no ambiguity about the difficulty they face. Chinese exports began declining last November and the government reckons that poor export performance knocked 2.9 percentage points off the growth rate in the first half of this year. The government also cites the decline in exports as an important factor in the loss of 20m jobs held by rural workers who had migrated to urban and industrial centres.

但是中国出口依靠的中小企业是劳动密集型，而不是能源密集型，而且一致公认他们正面临困难。去年十一月中国出口量开始下降，据政府估算，出口业的惨淡景象使今年上半年出口增长率下跌2.9个百分点。政府还举出，出口下降的一个重要原因是有2000万从农村进入城市和工业中心的工人失业。

According to Connie Zheng of Australia’s Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, hard knocks are nothing new for the smaller firms, which often bear the brunt of negative trends in China. In the decade since China began paying more attention to environmental regulation, for example, smaller firms have been far more likely than larger ones to face costly enforcement measures or closure. They have likewise drawn the short straw in the government’s response to the economic crisis. One part of that response was the 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus package launched last November, but much of this has been directed toward the sort of infrastructure projects that are dominated by large state-owned enterprises.

澳大利亚墨尔本皇家理工学院的郑康妮认为，奋力的拼搏不会为小型公司带来什么改变，因为他们经常承受中国消极趋势的冲击。比如，在中国开始更加注重环境法规的十年里，中小企业远不及大型企业那样能担负起不强制执行就要关门整治的高昂代价。在政府应对经济危机做出的举措中，他们又再次不幸被冷落。其中一项是去年十一月发布的经济刺激计划，价值四万亿人民币（5860亿美元），但是其中大部分是为基础设施项目提供的，而这些项目都是由大型国有企业主持的。

According to Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, state firms have been the “big winners of this crisis”. Monopolies, he says, are only getting more entrenched and big state firms are crowding out the smaller players China will ultimately need to sustain growth.

中国欧盟商会主席尔根•伍德克表示，国有公司已成为“经济危机中的最大赢家”，垄断已越发普遍，大型国有企业正将中小企业挤出市场，但中国最终还是要靠中小企业来支撑发展。

Another longstanding challenge for smaller firms has been poor access to credit, and although another part of the government’s crisis response has been a massive boost in bank lending, they have again been shut out. Of more than 7 trillion yuan loaned out in the first half of this year by Chinese banks, only an estimated 10% has gone to smaller firms.

中小企业长期面临的另一项挑战是几乎得不到贷款，虽然政府应对经济危机的举措中，有一块是大范围鼓励银行贷款，但是中小企业又再一次被打入冷宫。今年上半年，在中国各银行总计超过7万亿人民币的贷款中，只有约10%是流向中小企业的。

Much of China’s bank lending remains politically driven, putting state enterprises at a great advantage. Smaller firms have fared little better with lending decisions made on commercial terms. It is not without justification that banks often view smaller businesses as bigger credit risks, and China’s credit-rating system remains too poorly developed to benefit even the more solvent ones. This, according to Ms Zheng, has forced them to rely either on informal financing from friends and family, or on black-market lending schemes for which interest rates can be far higher than official bank rates.

中国大多数银行的贷款仍然是受政策驱使的，把国有企业放在第一位。就经营条件来说，中小企业基本不列入贷款考虑范围之内。银行一般认为贷给中小企业风险更大，这也不是没有理由的。而中国的信用评估体系依然很不完善，以至于有偿还能力的公司也无法得到贷款。据郑女士所示，这迫使中小企业要么私下向亲友筹资，要么就以比官方银行高得多的利率向地下钱庄贷款。

There are fresh signs that officials recognise the need to level the field. State news media this month reported plans for new measures aimed at improving access to capital for smaller businesses, including the establishment of two dedicated investment funds totalling 4 billion yuan. That, alas, is a mere pittance in the context of this year’s broader lending spree. It is not easy being small.

最新迹象表明，政府已意识到要平等对待这些公司。本月国家新闻媒体报道说，已有新的举措要计划改善中小企业获取资金的途径，包括建立两项总额为40亿人民币的专项投资拨款。唉，这在今年一片大好的借贷热潮中，也不过是极小的一杯羹罢了。中小企业真是不容易啊！