製造業撤離中國珠三角 中國不再只是外國的代工廠

Gerhard Flatz, the general manager of an Austrian factory in China that makes high-end skiwear for European brands, has a problem. He cannot find enough skilled seamstresses even though top performers can earn $1,500 a month, about eight times the local minimum wage in Heshan.

在位於中國廣州西南部的鶴山市，一家奧地利公司設立了一座爲歐洲品牌製作高端滑雪服的工廠，格哈德•弗拉茨(Gerhard Flatz)是這家工廠的總經理。弗拉茨現在遇到了一個問題。他找不到足夠多的熟練女縫紉工，即便他爲技術最好的工人開出了1500美元的月薪——這大約是鶴山最低工資水平的8倍。

“China has a shortage of skilled labour,” says Mr Flatz during a tour of the Heshan factory southwest of Guangzhou.

弗拉茨在視察鶴山工廠期間表示：“中國缺少熟練技術工人。”

As he walks past the pattern room where his most talented employees work, the garrulous Austrian explains that he is careful not to reveal their names to prevent poaching.

在走過紙樣間時——他最有才華的員工就在裏面工作——這位有些嘮叨的奧地利人解釋說，他會注意不透露他們的名字，以免被人挖牆腳。

“This is like the NSA”, he says with a smile, referring to the most secretive branch of the US intelligence services.

弗拉茨笑着說：“搞得像NSA似的。”他指的是美國最祕密的情報部門——美國國家安全局(NSA)。

Heshan is just one of the many cities in Guangdong that has transformed the province into the factory of the world. Shenzhen, the home to companies such as Huawei and Tencent, is another.

就是靠衆多像鶴山這樣的城市，廣東省如今成了“世界工廠”。另一座這樣的城市是深圳——華爲(Huawei)和騰訊(Tencent)等公司的總部所在地。

When Christina Zhang moved to Shenzhen in 1983, the rural fishing county was a far cry from the booming city it has become in the three decades since Deng Xiaoping created China’s first special economic zone .

1983年，Christina Zhang來到深圳的時候，那裏還是一個偏僻的小漁村。鄧小平在深圳設立了中國第一個經濟特區，如今30年過去了，深圳已發展爲一座繁華的大都市。

“Most of the area was paddy fields,” says Ms Zhang, who works at PCH International, a logistics company. “I learnt how to ride my bicycle on Shennan Road. There were no cars [but] now it is the main road.”

在物流公司PCH International工作的Christina Zhang表示：“當時這裏大部分地方都是稻田。我在深南路上學會了騎車。當時那條路上沒有一輛汽車，但現在那已是條交通主幹道。”

Since Deng launched his economic reforms in 1979, Shenzhen has changed from a tiny county of 30,000 people across the border from Hong Kong to a metropolis of 10m with one of the highest per-capita incomes in China.

自鄧小平在1979年啓動經濟改革、創立深圳經濟特區以來，深圳從一個與香港毗鄰的3萬人口的小鎮，逐漸發展爲如今的大都市，擁有1000萬人口、人均可支配收入爲全中國第一。

Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Foshan and other regional cities form the heart of the Pearl River Delta, a region of 56m that is vital to the world economy because it produces everything from bicycles to jeans and sex toys to iPads.

深圳、廣州、東莞、佛山以及其他區域城市構成了珠江三角洲的核心。人口總數達到5600萬人的珠江三角洲對世界經濟至爲關鍵，因爲從自行車、牛仔褲、性玩具到iPad，各種產品都在這裏生產。

Dongguan alone made about 30 per cent of the toys delivered over Christmas around the globe. Yao Kang, deputy Communist party secretary of the city, says it also makes 20 per cent of the sweaters and 10 per cent of the running shoes worn by consumers. As locals say: “When there is a traffic jam in Dongguan, the world runs out of supplies.”

僅東莞一個城市制造的玩具，就佔到聖誕節期間全球玩具總出貨量的30%。東莞市委副書記姚康表示，全球各地消費者穿的運動衫和跑鞋，也分別有20%和10%是在東莞生產的。正如東莞當地人所說：“東莞來一場堵車，全世界都會斷貨。”

Underscoring its phenomenal growth, Guangdong last week estimated that its economy grew 8.5 per cent to Rmb6.33tn ($1.05tn) in 2013, which would sandwich it between South Korea and Indonesia.

廣東省不久前的一項估算，突顯出該地區經濟增長的非凡成就：2013年廣東省經濟同比增長了8.5%，GDP達到6.33萬億元人民幣（合1.05萬億美元）——這一數字介於韓國和印尼的GDP數字之間。

The PRD has managed to produce cheap goods for so long because millions of migrants have been willing to work in factories making products they can rarely afford. In Shenzhen, authorities plan to raise its minimum wage by 13 per cent to Rmb1,808 next month. Although the city has the highest minimum wage in China, it would take a worker two months to earn enough to buy an iPad Air.

珠江三角洲之所以能夠如此長期地生產廉價商品，是因爲數百萬農民工一直願意去工廠裏工作，製造他們幾乎買不起的產品。在深圳，當地政府已宣佈從2月1日起將最低工資提高13%，至1808元人民幣。儘管深圳的最低工資水平是全中國最高的，但一名工人仍需要拿出兩個月的薪水，才能買得起一臺iPad Air。

But the system is coming under strain in ways that affect everyone from London shoppers to young Chinese in Guangdong: workers are harder to find, wages are rising rapidly, raw material and land prices are going up, the renminbi is getting stronger and other regions are becoming increasingly attractive for manufacturing.

但這種體系眼下正面臨壓力，從倫敦的購物者、到廣東的中國年輕人，各式人羣都受到了影響：招工越來越難、薪資迅速上升、原材料和土地價格一天天上漲、人民幣不斷升值，珠三角地區對製造業的吸引力相對於其他地區的優勢不斷縮小。

The obvious challenge to the region is labour costs, with wages in Guangdong rising at double-digit rates each year. That is unlikely to change since China is targeting nationwide annual increases of 13 per cent in its 2011-15 five-year plan, as part of a push to spur consumption and reduce the economy’s dependence on investment.

珠三角地區顯然面臨勞動力成本上漲的挑戰——廣東的工資水平每年以兩位數的速度增長。這種局面不太可能發生改變，因爲中國在其“十二五”（2011-2015年）規劃中提出了全國最低工資標準年均增長13%的目標，這是中國政府努力刺激消費並降低經濟對投資依賴的舉措之一。

Roger Lee, chief executive of TAL, a Hong Kong company with 11 factories in Asia that produces clothes for dozens of global brands, says wages have doubled over the past five years. In 2008 its Dongguan factories made clothes at half the cost of its facilities in Malaysia and Thailand but that gap has since disappeared.

香港聯業製衣(TAL)行政總裁李國權(Roger Lee)表示，工人工資在過去5年裏增長了一倍。聯業製衣在亞洲建有11個工廠，爲數十家全球品牌生產服裝。2008年，該公司在東莞的服裝廠的生產成本是馬來西亞和泰國工廠的一半，但如今這種差距已經消失了。

Crystal Group, one of Asia’s largest apparel companies with 11,000 workers in Dongguan, says organic costs – including wages and the strengthening renminbi – have risen 10-12 per cent over the past five years. As a result, it has been forced to shift production of commodity items such as polo shirts and underwear elsewhere.

晶苑集團(Crystal Group)表示，內生成本（包括薪資和人民幣的不斷升值）在過去5年裏增長了10%-12%。結果是，該公司被迫將保羅衫和內衣等商品的生產轉移到其他地區。晶苑集團是亞洲最大的製衣公司之一，在東莞有1.1萬名工人。

“Our strategy is to . . . produce them in cheaper countries like Vietnam or Cambodia,” says Dennis Wong, executive director. “That is why we are still surviving.”

晶苑集團行政總裁羅正亮(Dennis Wong)表示：“我們的策略是……在越南或柬埔寨等勞動力成本較低的地區進行生產。這就是目前我們仍然能生存的原因。”

While some companies such as Crystal are shifting production to southeast Asia, others are moving to cheaper parts of China. Samsonite, the luggage maker that outsources about 65 per cent of its production to Chinese companies, has seen many of its vendors move to provinces around Shanghai in the Yangtze River Delta.

在晶苑集團等公司紛紛將生產轉移到東南亞之際，其他一些公司則轉移到了勞動力成本較低的中國內地。箱包製造商新秀麗(Samsonite)將65%的生產外包給中國公司，而近年來它的許多供應商已經搬到了位於長江三角洲的上海周邊省份。

“About 80 or 90 per cent of the people we were working with were based in southern China,” says Tim Parker, chief executive of Samsonite. “Now probably the majority . . . we purchase comes from eastern China”.

新秀麗首席執行官蒂姆•帕克(Tim Parker)表示：“過去我們有大約80%或90%的合作伙伴是在華南地區，現在我們主要……從華東地區採購。”

Despite rising labour costs, any decision to leave the delta is not easy for foreign companies and their local manufacturers. Its ecosystem – everything from clusters of suppliers to road and rail infrastructure to access to ports in Shenzhen and Hong Kong – is hard to match elsewhere without sparking other cost increases.

儘管勞動力成本節節上漲，但對外國公司及其中國本地製造商來說，要想下決心離開珠三角地區並不容易。要在不引起其它成本增加的情況下，創建與珠三角相當的生態系統——從供應商簇羣、到直通深圳和香港港口的公路和鐵路基礎設施——非常困難。

Nick Debham, Asia head of consumer markets at KMPG, says textile manufacturers, for example, can shift lower-skilled production to countries such as Bangladesh and Cambodia relatively easily, although wages in those countries are also rising. But other industries, such as toy manufacturing, which is concentrated in south China, are less mobile as they rely on concentrated clusters of suppliers.

畢馬威(KMPG)消費者市場亞洲區總裁尼克•德布哈姆(Nick Debham)表示，對紡織業（打個比方）等行業的製造商而言，將技術含量較低的生產轉移到孟加拉國和柬埔寨等國相對容易一些，儘管那些國家的工資水平也在不斷上升。但玩具製造業等行業就不那麼容易轉移了，因爲這些行業的生存依賴集中化的供應商簇羣。玩具業大多位於華南地區。

“There are so many ancillary bits and pieces that need to be in place, it is difficult to move the whole thing lock, stock and barrel out of China,” says Mr Debham.

德布哈姆表示：“我們需要零零散散地安裝非常多的附屬設備，很難把整套設備固定、打包並運出中國。”

For companies that are contemplating moving inland in China instead of overseas, the decision is no easier. Mr Lee of TAL says his company conducted a study five years ago that concluded that moving inland would cut labour costs by 15 per cent but that the level of infrastructure would not be as good as in Guangdong.

即便對只是考慮遷往中國內陸、而非海外的企業來說，決定搬遷也不容易。聯業製衣的李國權表示，自己的公司在5年前做了一項調查，結果發現，遷往內地能將勞動力成本降低15%，但內地的基礎設施水平可能不如廣東。

For manufacturers that cannot easily relocate, one solution is to automate more. Samsonite’s Mr Parker says his Chinese vendors are doing exactly that. He says there is plenty of scope since many Chinese factories use far more basic equipment than, for example, those the suitcase maker employs in its own facility in Belgium.

對不容易遷移的製造商來說，一個解決辦法是提高自動化水平。新秀麗的帕克表示，他的許多中國供應商就是這麼幹的。他說，自動化還有很大的空間，許多中國工廠中使用的設備比新秀麗自己在比利時的工廠（打個比方）要簡陋得多。

“In China . . . you will find a totally different set-up and it is driven . . . by the relatively low cost of labour,” says Mr Parker. “That’s all changing because as the costs of labour increase, so some of our more enterprising suppliers are beginning to invest in more . . . sophisticated sewing equipment in order to reduce the labour content.”

帕克表示：“在中國……你會發現完全不同的設備，這是勞動力成本相對較低……導致的。隨着勞動力成本上升，這一切都在改變，因此在我們的供應商中，一些更有進取心的工廠爲降低勞動力成本，已開始投資購買一些更……精密的縫紉設備。”

Some local governments, such as Dongguan, are trying to accelerate that process with subsidies. Mr Yao, the deputy party secretary, points to the knitting town of Dalang as a successful example, saying that its factories used the government funds to buy 40,000 computerised knitting machines, reducing the need for 200,000 workers.

東莞等地方政府正努力通過提供補貼，來加快企業的自動化進程。東莞市委副書記姚康將大朗針織鎮作爲一個成功的典型。他說，大朗鎮的工廠利用政府資金購買了4萬臺電腦針織機，可減少20萬名工人。

While manufacturers juggle solutions to rising labour costs, the trend is expected to get worse for various reasons. Rising wages are partly due to local governments raising the minimum levels. In its 2011-15 economic plan, Guangdong is targeting a 40 per cent rise. But the driving cause is factories being forced to pay more to attract workers amid an increasingly tight labour market.

儘管製造商爲解決勞動力成本日益上升的問題絞盡腦汁，但預計這種趨勢仍將繼續惡化，原因有很多。工資日益增長的部分原因在於，地方政府提高了最低工資標準，廣東省在其2011-2015年的經濟計劃中就提出了最低工資標準增長40%的目標。但更主要的原因是，在一個供應日益緊張的勞動力市場中，工廠被迫要支付更高工資來吸引工人。

Several factors explain the scarcity of workers but the main reason is demographics. As a result of its one-child policy, China’s working-age population – people between the ages of 15 and 59 – fell by 3.45m to 937m in 2012, in what was the first decline in many years.

造成工人短缺現象的原因有許多，但主要原因是人口結構因素。由於多年實行計劃生育政策，2012年中國的勞動年齡人口（15歲至59歲）多年來首次出現下降，至9.37億人，比前一年減少了345萬人。

The labour squeeze is exacerbated in the PRD as migrant workers now have greater opportunities in their home provinces. These new opportunities are a result of central government policies aimed at promoting inland development to reduce the income gap with rich coastal regions. The “go-west” strategy is creating jobs in the interior that are particularly attractive to women who in the past left their children and moved to Guangdong for factory jobs.

農民工如今在家鄉省份有了更好的工作機會，這加劇了珠三角地區勞動力市場供應緊張的局勢。這些新的機會是中央政府出臺政策的結果，這些政策旨在推動內地發展，以縮減內地與沿海富裕地區的收入差距。“西部大開發”戰略爲內地省份創造了就業機會，對那些過去把孩子留在家中、去廣東的工廠裏打工的婦女們來說，這種機會尤其具有吸引力。

Another reason manufacturers are having to pay more is that workers are increasingly picky about jobs, since they have more choices as the PRD labour market shifts in their favour. Young workers are also less willing than earlier generations of migrants to toil in factories.

製造商不得不提高工資水平的另一個原因是，工人們對工作變得越來越挑剔，因爲隨着珠三角地區勞動力市場開始變得對工人有利，他們有了更多的選擇。與前幾代農民工相比，年輕的工人們也更不願意從事辛苦的工廠工作。

The explosive growth in smartphones and Weibo and Weixin – known as WeChat in English – one of the most popular social media services in China, has further empowered workers by making it easier for them to learn about other factories that may have better conditions.

智能手機、微博以及風靡中國的社交媒體服務微信（海外版是WeChat）的爆炸式發展，讓工人們更容易知道哪些工廠可以提供更好的待遇，這進一步增加了他們的底氣。

Factories say finding female workers is increasingly difficult. The one-child policy, coupled with the general preference for male children, has skewed the gender balance, reducing the number of female workers. But young women also increasingly prefer service industry jobs over more arduous production line work.

工廠表示，招聘女工越來越困難。計劃生育政策再加上許多地方偏愛男孩，導致中國人性別失衡，女工數量下降。不過年輕女性也越來越明顯地傾向於找服務行業的工作，而不是更辛苦的生產線工作。

The demographic and economic trends that are sparking higher wages in the PRD are forcing multinationals to raise prices, put more pressure on their suppliers to cut costs or simply accept lower profits.

人口結構和經濟趨勢引發了珠三角地區薪資上漲，也在迫使跨國企業提高產品價格，對供應商施加更大壓力，要求它們削減成本、或直接接受更低的利潤。

But some manufacturers, such as KTC in Heshan, say a more serious issue than rising wages – which can be absorbed at a cost – is the difficulty in finding enough workers with the right skills to allow production to continue.

但鶴山KTC等製造商表示，比薪資上漲更嚴重的問題是，很難招聘到足夠多擁有合適技能的工人來維持持續生產。薪資上漲不過讓工廠增加了一些成本。

KTC has opened a factory in Laos but, as in the case of Crystal Group, the workers there make less complicated garments than in Heshan because they do not have the same skills as their Chinese peers.

KTC在老撾開了一家工廠，但與晶苑集團的情況一樣，那裏的工人們生產的服裝比鶴山工廠裏生產的更簡單，因爲老撾工人的技術不如中國工人。

Top Form, a Hong Kong lingerie maker, faces a similar problem. Kevin Wong, executive director, says it closed a factory in Shenzhen and opened one in Cambodia in 2011.

香港內衣製造商黛麗斯公司(Top Form)面臨一個類似的問題。黛麗斯公司執行董事黃啓聰(Kevin Wong)表示，該公司在2011年關閉了深圳工廠，並在柬埔寨開了一家工廠。

Mr Wong says that although wages in the southeast Asian nation are one quarter of the level in Shenzhen, that was not the main reason for the move.

黃啓聰表示，儘管東南亞國家的薪資水平是深圳的四分之一，但這並不是黛麗斯搬到那裏的主要原因。

“It was never the labour cost. Once you don’t have the people, the overhead just kills you,” says Mr Wong, explaining that it was becoming impossible to find enough workers in Shenzhen.

黃啓聰說道：“勞動力成本從來就不是一個問題。要是招不到工人，管理費用就會要了你的命。”他解釋稱，在深圳，已經不可能找到足夠的工人了。

Regardless of the industry, the challenges in the PRD are forcing all manufacturers to find cost-cutting solutions, with the most extreme one being relocation from China. But Mr Debham says talk of multinationals abandoning China are overblown, and that many companies do not follow through on their repeated threats to leave China.

無論是哪種行業，珠三角地區面臨的挑戰正迫使所有制造商尋找削減成本的辦法，最極端的做法是撤離中國。但德布哈姆表示，跨國企業即將放棄中國的說法言過其實了，許多公司雖然再三威脅要撤離中國，但它們並沒有真的付諸行動。

“People think that the cost issues in China and the labour issues in China will inevitably force low value-added production out of China, but it is still there,” says Mr Debham.

德布哈姆說：“人們認爲，中國的成本和勞動力問題將不可避免地迫使低附加值的生產撤離中國，但如今這些工廠仍留在這裏。”

Given the scale of manufacturing in the PRD, the region is likely to remain the world’s factory for a long time. But manufacturers in the region and consumers buying the products face a pricier future.

鑑於其龐大的製造業規模，珠三角地區可能在很長時間內依然會是“世界工廠”。但該地區的製造商以及購買其產品的消費者，未來將面臨價格上漲的前景。

William Fung, chairman of Li & Fung, the big global sourcing company that procures products for everyone from Walmart to Target, says rising labour and raw material costs mean the model that served China and the world for 30 years has changed for good.

利豐(Li & Fung)董事長馮國綸(William Fung)表示，勞動力和原材料成本不斷上升意味着，爲中國以及全世界服務了30年的模式已經永久性地改變了。利豐是一家全球大型採購公司，爲從沃爾瑪(Walmart)到塔吉特(Target)的各大企業採購產品。

“The era where China subsidised the world’s standard of living – by giving them really affordable goods from 1979-2009 – is basically over,” says Mr Fung. “People will pay what other people will probably say is a proper price.”

馮國綸表示：“中國爲全球生活水準提供補貼的時代已基本結束——從1979年到2009年，中國爲全世界提供了物廉價美的商品。未來人們將要支付在其他人看來或許更公允的價格。”