经济学人下载:印尼矿业 熔炉决定生存

Business
商业报道

Mining in Indonesia
印尼矿业

Smeltdown
熔炉决定生存

The government risks an export slump to boost the metals-processing industry
政府为了刺激金属加工业发展不惜冒着削减出口量的危险

INDONESIA'S government concedes that it will cause short-term damage; but on January 12th it went ahead and banned exports of mineral ores, at last implementing a law passed in 2009.
印尼政府承认了金属加工产业将蒙受短期亏损；但是在1月12号，印尼政府坚持09年的立法，继续禁止出口矿石。

Officials say that forcing mining firms to export only processed minerals will attract investment in smelters and refineries.
官方称，强令矿业公司只出口加工过的矿石将吸引投资，主要针对熔炼和精炼产业。

After a year or so this will start to add value to the country's exports, they say.
在一年左右的时间后，这举措会增加印尼出口的价值。

But it is quite a gamble.
但这是一个相当大的赌博。

Indonesiahas few smelters, and earns 5 billion a year by exporting uNPRocessed minerals such as copper concentrate, nickel ores and bauxite.
印尼有一些熔炉产业，而且每年可以从出口天然矿产里，例如铜精矿石、镍矿石、矾土，获利50亿美元。

The mining ministry had admitted that an outright ban on ore shipments would cut exports by 4 billion this year and 2.5 billion next.
矿业部承认，今年完全禁止矿石海运出口会减少40亿的出口额，明年预计减少25亿。

With the country's current-account deficit last year hitting 3.5% of GDP, its worst since 1986, and its currency falling steeply, this is a bad time to be forgoing foreign earnings.
在印尼往来账户赤字占有GDP总额3.5%的情况下，这不是一个放弃国外盈利好时期。这是自1986年来最坏的情形，并且它的货币贬值很厉害。

This may explain why the president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, relaxed the moratorium at the last moment to let big copper producers keep exporting concentrate.
这就解释了为什么苏西洛总统最后最后时刻放宽了出口政策转而让大型制铜商们继续出口精矿石。

FreeportIndonesia, an American-owned miner, had warned of a 60% cut in production at its Grasberg mine in Papua, the world's fifth-largest copper mine, if the ban had been imposed in its original form.
如果禁令实施保持不变，美国控股的印尼自由港矿业公司警告它将减少了它在巴布亚岛Grasberg矿的60%产量。

Freeportsmelts about 40% of its output at Gresik in eastern Java, the country's sole copper smelter, but it exports the rest as concentrate.
这座矿同时也是世界第五大铜矿。自由港冶炼了在Java东部Gresik大约40%的矿石产出，是这个国家唯一的铜矿冶炼公司，但是它出口剩下没炼的矿石，例如铜精矿。

Concentrating minds
以提炼矿石为中心

Another reason for waiving the restriction on copper is that, in contrast to some other metals, mining and concentrating it produces most of its final value:
放弃限制铜矿出口政策的另一个原因就是，与某些金属对比，采铜和精炼就可以占有最大一部分的最终价值：

Nathan Associates, a consultancy in Washington, DC, says only 4-6% is added by smelting.
南森联合公司是华盛顿的一家咨询公司，宣称只有4%-6%的价值是通过熔炼加上去的。

So the potential upside from insisting that only refined copper be exported is slight relative to the downside of losing 2.5 billion a year of concentrate exports.
因此，与丧失一年25亿美元铜精矿出口额相比，潜在的升值空间就来自于坚持出口精炼铜矿出口。

However, there are significant gains to be made by processing other metal ores.
然而，有一些可观的收入就可能来自于其他金属矿石加工。

About 94% of aluminium's final value comes from the refining and smelting stages, for example.
大约94%的铝矿最终价值来自提炼和熔炼程序，例如，熔炼增加了镍矿石的价值。

Smelting adds a lot of value to nickel ore, too.
但是，只要大量新的熔炉实际建成，印尼就会实现这些收入。

But Indonesia will achieve these gains only if plenty of new smelters are actually built.
这些投入很昂贵，需要大量配套基础设施，

Such plants are expensive, and require a lot of supporting infrastructure, such as power plants, ports and roads:Indonesiais terrible at building these.
如电力，港口，道路：印尼很不擅长建造这些设施。

Moreover, world mineral prices are depressed and smelting margins are low.
世界矿产价格持续低迷，熔炼利润持续走低。

Nevertheless, the government says that many new smelters are in the works.
不过，政府部门称，很多熔炉都已投入使用。

China Hongqiao, that country's biggest privately owned aluminium producer, is building a 1 billion smelter in Borneo.
中国虹桥公司，作为印尼最大的私有铝矿生产者，正在Borneo建造一个价值十亿美元的熔炉。

The Indonesian government says another big Chinese firm, Shandong Nanshan Aluminium, is investing 5 billion in a smelter, power plant and port on Bintan island.
印尼政府说另一个大型中国公司，山东南山铝业，正投资50亿美元在Bintan岛建造熔炉，电力系统，港口。

As for nickel, when President Xi Jinping visited Indonesia last October he witnessed the signing of several agreements by Chinese firms to build smelters to produce the metal, used in making stainless steel.
至于镍矿，去年十月份习近平主席拜访印尼时，见证了中国公司建熔炉生产金属制作不锈钢的协议签订。

This was a reminder of how dependentChinais on Indonesian nickel supplies, and a hint that it may be more interested in securing those supplies than in whether its companies make profits from the new smelting plants.
这是一个对中国的提醒，对印尼镍矿提供有多么依赖，也是一个暗示，中国可能会对保护这些供给矿源产生更大的兴趣，而不是在乎是否这些公司真正从这些新熔炉制造中盈利。

So although export bans are generally not a good idea, and using protectionism to foster “infant industries” is a policy that has produced more failures than successes, it is not impossible thatIndonesiawill achieve its hopes of moving its natural-resources industries up the value chain.
因此，尽管出口禁令总体上不算个好点子，而且使用贸易保护主义来培育“新生产业”的政策往往带来更多失败而不是成功，但印尼也有可能实现它的期望，那就是将依赖自然资源的工业绑上盈利产业链。

But at what cost in the meantime?
但是这样做的同时需要付出什么代价呢？

A little bit of resource nationalism may win Mr Yudhoyono's allies a few votes in the parliamentary elections scheduled for April and the presidential one in July.
一年资源国家主义可能会为尤多约诺总统在四月份的议会选举和7月份的总统大选里赢得一些选票。

But it may lose a lot more if many smaller miners, who cannot afford to invest in smelters, close down and cut large numbers of jobs.
但是也有可能失去更多的小型矿主，他们无力投资熔炉，导致倒闭和大量裁员。

If the short-term loss of export income exacerbates worries aboutIndonesia's current account, the consequences could be worse still.
如果短期出口盈利损失使印尼货币贬值加剧，结局仍可能是更糟。