【英语中国】欧美零售商在华扩张助推中国出口

With the U.S. economy slowing sharply, attention is bound to focus again on what's known as global rebalancing. The idea is that economies with big trade surpluses - China especially - should shift their economies to domestic consumption rather than exports, and boost imports from trade-deficit countries like the U.S. That new paradigm will be the heart of the November Group-of-20 leaders summit in Korea.

By that light, U.S. and European retail expansion in China should be a big positive. Megastores owned by Walmart, Carrefour and others are often the brightest shopping spaces in China and should boost consumption there.

But a paper by three economists points out a very different trend: After big U.S. and European retailers expand in Chinese cities, exports increase there. A Chinese city's export capability increase by 2.55% when the number of outlets in the city increases by 10%, find Keith Head, of the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, Deborah Swenson of the University of California at Davis and Ran Jing of the School of International Trade and Economics in Beijing.

Why the rise in exports? For several reasons. China's regulations in the 1990s and early 2000s encouraged retailers to export in order to win permission to expand in China. Retailers are discriminating buyers, who push suppliers to boost their productivity, thus making the suppliers more able to compete internationally. The retailers also test out products in the Chinese market before ordering them for other stores outside China.

The three economists don't look at the effect retailers have on imports - many consumer gadgets made in Southeast Asia contain significant amount of U.S. content, for instance. But the study is another reminder of how difficult it is for China to shift its economy from export-led growth to become an engine of growth for the U.S. and Europe.

着美国经济增速大幅放缓，人们势必将目光再次盯住全球的经济再平衡问题。而有关再平衡的具体构思是指，世界上的贸易顺差大国──尤其是中国，应将自己的经济转型为国内消费型，而不是一味依赖出口，并且应增加从美国等贸易逆差国的进口。这种经济再平衡模式将成为11月在韩国举行的G20峰会讨论的核心话题。

由此看来，美国和欧洲零售商扩大其在华业务实乃明智之举。沃尔玛、家乐福等超大型超市可以说是中国人最爱光顾的地方，它们应该能刺激国内消费。

但是一份由三个经济学家共同完成的论文却指出了一个不同寻常的现象，即当欧美零售巨头扩大在华业务后，中国的出口反而增加了。加拿大英属哥伦比亚大学(University of British Columbia)尚德商学院(Sauder School of Business)的海德(Keith Head)、美国加州大学戴维斯分校(University of California at Davis)的史文森(Deborah Swenson)以及北京对外经济贸易大学的冉晶（音）研究发现，欧美零售商在一座中国城市的分店数量每增加10%，该市的出口力就增加2.55%。

为什么出口会增加呢？好几个原因可以对此进行解释。中国上世纪90年代以及本世纪初订立的法规都鼓励外资零售商出口，这样它们才能获得在华拓展业务的许可。由于外资零售商是有鉴别能力的买家，促使中国供应商提高生产力，从而也提高了后者的国际竞争力。而零售商首先会将新产品投放在中国市场对其进行大规模检验，之后才会为海外分店发出订单。

上述三位经济学家并未谈到零售商对进口的影响，比方说，东南亚制造的很多消费电子产品中有大量零部件来自美国。不过这项研究从另一方面提醒说，中国经济要从出口导向型变为拉动欧美增长的引擎，其难度可想而知。