经济学人下载:中国制造业-廉价商品的终结?

Nothing can replace the Chinese miracle. “There is no next,” says Mr Rockowitz. Prices will now start to rise by 5% or more each year, with no end in sight. And that may be optimistic. So far this year, Mr Rockowitz says, Li & Fung’s sourcing operation has seen price increases of 15% on average. Other sourcers of Asian toys, clothes and basic household products tell similarly ominous tales.

没有任何一个国家可以替代中国所创造的奇迹。“没有替代者，”布鲁斯说。从现在开始，商品价格将以每年5%以上的速度上涨，且无法预见何时可以结束这种趋势。这可能还是一种乐观的判断。布鲁斯说，今年截至到目前为止，利丰公司的采购业务已经面临了平均15%的价格上涨。其他亚洲玩具、服装和家庭日用品的采购商，也传递着同样不祥的信息。

Yet manufacturers in some other fields see things differently. On May 31st, the day Mr Rockowitz spoke in Hong Kong, the annual Computex fair opened an hour’s flight away in Taipei. Hotels were packed, even at inflated prices. The world’s hottest technology companies, such as Apple and even Taiwan’s HTC, were absent. But nearly 2,000 vendors showed up to hawk cheap and innovative gizmos.

然而，从事其他制造领域的厂商却有不同的看法。5月31日，布鲁斯在香港出席一个论坛会议，距离香港一个飞机时辰的台北正在举办年度国际电脑展。所有酒店入住价格均上涨，但是仍然爆满。世界上最热门的科技公司，如苹果，甚至是台湾的宏达电都缺席了，但是仍然有将近2000个厂商到场，参展他们廉价但新奇的小发明。

Mainland Chinese firms arrived in force: more than 500 hired booths, up from 200 last year. Many are from the same parts of China that were once noted for cheap textiles and toys. With government encouragement, the belt that stretches from Shenzhen to Guangzhou has been shifting to more sophisticated products, such as electronics.

中国大陆的厂商蜂拥而至：预订的展位从去年的200个激增至500个。其中多数厂商曾是中国廉价纺织品和玩具的制造商。在政府的鼓励下，从深圳到广州一带的厂商纷纷转型从事更加复杂的产品生产，如电子产品。

Some of the more striking offerings at the fair were ultra-cheap versions of global hits. A company named BananaU advertised tablet computers with Google’s Android operating system for $100. Another pushed Windows-based thin computers looking much like MacBooks for under $250. E-Readers were everywhere and available for a song.

在展会上更为引人注目的是一些超级低价的全球热销产品。一家名为BananaU的公司为其Android操作系统的平板电脑做广告，售价为100美金。另一个基于windows操作系统，但是外形酷似苹果笔记本的超薄计算机售价是250美金。极度便宜的电子阅读器更是到处皆是。

Whether these products can be produced or sold in developed markets is unclear. The quality may be “B” for Banana rather than “A” for Apple. The intellectual property embedded in some devices may not, ahem, have been paid for. But still, the booths were packed. Buyers goggled and haggled over motherboards, memory chips, solid-state drives, servers, graphics cards, non-tangling cables, connectors, monitors and so on.

目前还未知这些产品是否允许在发达国家生产或销售。Banana公司的产品质量等级也许是B，而Apple公司的产品质量等级是A。一些电子设备中内嵌的知识产权也许并未取得使用授权。但是，展位仍然爆满。买家为主板、内存、固态硬盘、服务器、显卡、集线器、连接器和显示器等讨价还价。