Speed industry restructuring

蝴蝶刺尾

China Should Speed industry restructuring

　　ShujieYao (China Daily)

　　Updated:2010-07-16 07:59

　　Chinamust expand services sector and move manufacturing inland in orderto combat labor shortages in coming years

　　Even thoughChina's leaders prize stability, they may come to look back onrecent labor strikes as a healthy and vital turning point onChina's twisting path to development.

　　The era oflow-cost production on a massive scale is drawing to a close. Asevere labor shortage is set to become a huge challenge for Chinain the next 10 to 20 years, rendering explosive growth based oncheap and abundant labor impossible.

　　Thegovernment must be quick to embrace wage rises for Chinese workersas the catalyst to accelerating its industrial restructuring. Toosluggish a response will leave it struggling to maintain higheconomic growth and withstand public pressure, the inevitableaccompaniment to mounting social inequality.

　　China facestwo key tasks in the face of rising wages. It must move itsindustrial production quickly up the technology ladder, reducingits reliance on the manufacturing industries and expanding itsservice sector. And it must relocate its traditional manufacturinghubs from coastal areas to central and western regions.

　　Progress isclearly being made in the latter. Many cities have begun to raisetheir minimum wages by up to 48 percent. Wuhan increased itsminimum wage from 700 yuan per month to more than 900 yuan permonth. Shenzhen now has the highest minimum wage, upping it from900 yuan per month to 1,250 yuan per month.

　　Following aslew of suicides, and a subsequent pay hike to 2,000 yuan permonth, Foxconn has announced the opening of factories in the inlandcities of Nanning, Chongqing and Wuhan to slash productioncosts.

　　Many morecompanies will follow, enabling China to begin rebalancing itsregional economies. Some will also turn to Vietnam to takeadvantage of wage rates that are 50 percent lower than those ininland Chinese cities.

　　But alarge-scale exodus from China is highly unlikely. Countries likeVietnam, Laos and Bangladesh simply can't compete with China interms of infrastructure, logistics and scale of production. For theforeseeable future, Western buyers will be able to absorb risingChinese labor costs by passing the difference on to Westernconsumers.

　　The threatof a labor shortage, however, makes the transition frommanufacturing to service industries all the more urgent for theChinese development model.

　　Britisheconomist Arthur Lewis proposed a dual economy model for adeveloping country in the 1950s, comprising a modern industrialsector and a traditional agricultural sector. As the model goes,surplus labor gradually shifts from the agricultural to theindustrial sector, with the country becoming more productive andindustrialized.

　　In theinitial stages of rural-urban migration, industrial wages arerelatively low as the economy has an abundant labor supply. As morelabor is absorbed by the industrial sector, the labor surplus inthe agricultural sector declines, which pushes up industrial wages.The industrial wages can increase rapidly before all theagricultural surplus labor is totally absorbed by industry.

　　China hasreached the beginning of the "Lewis turning point", whereindustrial wages are rising even though a significant amount oflabor remains in the countryside.

　　Severalfactors are pushing up wages in the cities. Living standards andagricultural productivity in rural China have increased markedlyover the last 30 years, raising the income expectations of newrural migrants.

　　Second, therising cost of living in cities, particularly in housing, medicalcare and education, mean that higher wages are required simply tosurvive. Third, non-farming activities in rural areas have becomevery important sources of income, resulting in many rural workershaving no need to move to cities in search of highersalaries.

　　And thenthere is the issue of China's ageing population that has beenlooming large for the last decade. The number of people agedbetween 15 and 24 entering the labor market in the next 10 years isset to decline by 30 percent.

　　It may seemhard to believe now, as Chinese graduates compete furiously forlimited job opportunities for little financial reward, but therewill also be signs of a labor shortage among China's youngcollege-educated workers.

　　This year,9.46 million students competed for places at Chinese universities,down 740,000 from the previous year - the second successive year ofdecline. If this trend continues, the population of collegestudents will decline rapidly in the near future.

　　In theshort-term though, Chinese graduates will still find themselveshaving to accept employment that is lowly paid in comparison totheir educational qualifications.

　　But thequicker China moves towards a more hi-tech output, the more jobswill become available to young skilled workers. A more balancedregional development will also help reduce employment pressure forgraduates chasing jobs in the major cities.

　　The recentspate of workers' strikes and the resulting wage rises will bringnecessary, long-term benefits to both China's blue-collar andwhite-collar workforces.

　　It is alsothe responsibility of municipal governments to provide basiceducation, healthcare and housing for migrant workers to mitigatewage hike pressures and raise happiness levels among low andmiddle-income households.

　　Cruciallyfor the Chinese leadership, higher incomes will add legitimacy toits pledges to narrow the gross inequality gap and compel it to actwith urgency in its pursuit of a sustainable and developedeconomy.

　　Theauthor is head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at theUniversity of Nottingham.

　　

(China Daily 07/16/2010 page8)

蝴蝶刺尾

中国应加速产业结构调整
　　2010-07-16 06:45:58     
　　中国日报网消息：英文《中国日报》7月16日评论版文章：为了应对即将到来的劳动力紧缺，中国应当扩大服务业，并将制造业向内陆转移。
　　尽管中国领导人十分重视社会的和谐与稳定，他们仍应当认真回顾近来发生的一系列罢工事件，并将其视为中国发展道路上良性的、重要的转折点。
　　中国低成本大规模生产的时代行将结束。未来10到20年，劳动力短缺将成为中国发展的巨大挑战。因此，继续依靠大量的廉价劳动力来发展中国经济的做法并不可取。
　　中国ZF必须满足工人对高工资水平的需求，以加快产业结构调整。如若不然，不断拉大的社会差距将使中国经济难以维持高速增长，中国ZF也会面临来自公众的巨大压力。
　　随着工人工资的上涨，中国面临两大重要任务：一是中国的工业生产必须迅速向科技密集型转变，减少对制造业的依赖，同时不断提高服务业在整个国民经济中所占的比重。二是中国必须把位于沿海的传统制造业中心向中西部转移。
　　在工厂向内陆转移方面，我们已经取得了明显的进步。许多城市已经将最低工资提高了48%。例如，武汉将其最低工资由每月的700元提高到每月900多元。而目前深圳的最低工资水平则居于全国首位，从每月900元上调到每月1250元。
　　在一系列员工自杀悲剧和将工人工资提高到每月2000元后，富士康宣布将在南宁、重庆、武汉等内陆城市建立分厂，以降低生产成本。
　　同时，有更多的公司也加入了在内陆城市建厂的行列，这使得中国开始重新调整其区域经济。有些公司甚至到越南办厂，看中的是越南比中国内陆城市还要低一半的工资水平。
　　但是，迁到越南等地的工厂毕竟只是少数，因为像越南、老挝、孟加拉国这样的国家，它们在基础设施、后勤以及生产规模等方面还无法与中国相匹敌。在可预见的未来，西方那些大批进口中国货物的商家可以将上涨的劳动力成本转移给他们本国的消费者。
　　然而，劳动力短缺带来的威胁使中国经济发展模式由制造业向服务业的转型显得更为迫切。
　　上世纪50年代，英国经济学家亚瑟·刘易斯提出了可供发展中国家参考的“二元经济论”，即将现代工业与传统农业相融合。这一经济模式的实施使农业剩余劳动力向工业领域转移，社会生产力和国家的工业化程度不断提高。
　　在农村人口流入城市的初始阶段，由于劳动力富余，工资水平较低。随着工业领域对劳动力的需求不断增加，而农业领域可向工业领域转移的剩余劳动力不断减少，这一变化会推动工业领域的工资上涨。在农业剩余劳动力被工业领域完全吸纳之前，工人的工资将一直保持上涨的态势。
　　然而目前，中国似乎提前进入了 “刘易斯拐点”，即尽管农村尚有一大批剩余劳动力，而工业领域工人的工资已经开始上涨。
　　中国多个城市的工资在几股合力的作用下开始上涨。
　　首先，过去30年，农村地区生活成本和农业生产力的提高使新一代农民工对工资水平的期望值越来越高。
　　其次，城市生活成本，尤其是房价、医疗和教育费用的急剧攀升，使得人们必须依靠较高的工资水平才能维持城市高昂的生活成本。
　　第三，在农村地区，非农业活动已经成为农民收入的重要来源，这使得许多农村地区的工人无需到城市来寻求更高的工资。
　　过去10年，老龄化已经成为中国社会发展的巨大包袱。未来10年劳动力市场中15到24岁的人口数量将下降30%。
　　目前中国的高校毕业生就业机会少、工资收入低，在求职过程中面临着激烈的竞争。但令人难以置信的是，有迹象表明，在不久的将来，中国受过高等教育的劳动力将严重短缺。
　　今年有946万人参加高考，较去年减少74万，这也是继去年以来高考报考人数的第二次下降。如果这种趋势持续下去，在不久的将来，中国的大学生人数将会急剧减少。
　　尽管在短期内，中国的大学毕业生不得不接受工资水平低且与他们的教育背景不相符的工作，但是随着中国日益重视高科技领域发展，中国的高校毕业生将会得到更多的工作机会。与此同时，随着中国地区经济差异的减小，高校毕业生在主要城市求职的压力也会随之减少。
　　由此看来，最近的罢工风波以及随后的工资上涨，必将给中国的蓝领和白领带来长期的利益。
　　ZF部门有责任为农民工提供基础教育、医疗以及住房等条件，以减轻中低收入家庭的生活压力，增加他们的幸福感。
　　同时，对中国的领导人来说，较高的工资水平也有利于实现ZF在缩小收入差距方面的许诺，推动ZF加快实现经济的可持续发展。
　特别说明：因中英文写作风格不同，中文稿件与英文原文不完全对应。（作者为英国诺丁汉大学当代中国研究学院院长姚树洁 编译 赵欣莹 编辑 潘忠明）.

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