偏爱外国货的中国人

The menswear floor of the New World Department Store in central Chengdu, a city of 14m in western China, offers the kind of fast fashion you might expect to see in any second-tier city in the US or Europe.

The signage on the concessions is in English but it displays unfamiliar brand names. “I’m David” sells urban casual wear, “Scofield” is meant to have a British feel, while “Mind Bridge” and “Gather Jewels” are both preppy Ivy League style.

They may look the part, but these clothes struggle to compete with Uniqlo, Zara and H&M, all of which have their own stores nearby. Brands such as these illustrate the problems and opportunities facing China as it attempts to jump-start the consumer spending that will rebalance its economy away from heavy investment in factories and property.

Chinese consumers want foreign goods. Whether sports shoes or cars, televisions or mobile phones, cosmetics or nappies, surveys show that foreign brands predominate.

Shaun Rein of China Market Research Group says people trust foreign brands not to cut corners and associate them with more of an established heritage than their domestic labels.

This spells trouble for China as its people become more middle-class and spend more on non-essential items. The more that they buy foreign goods, the more that the proceeds of China’s progress will accumulate to shareholders elsewhere. It will also mean fewer profits for Chinese companies to reinvest in innovation and expertise at home in electronics, for example.

When the US consumer boom began after the second world war, the world was much less globalised – most of the money that Americans spent went to companies that Americans owned. Unless China’s path changes, the draining of wealth to foreign companies will affect the country’s ability to get richer in a sustainable and more equitable way.

Its lack of popular brands is already visible to some degree in its trade balances with other countries. China may run a large nominal surplus but when economists adjust those numbers for the value that it adds or gives away in making goods that are consumed at home or abroad, the numbers tell a very different story.

For example, its total trade surplus with the US drops from $189bn to $127bn on a value-added basis, according to calculations by economists at BBVA, the Spanish bank. Most of this reduction is due to value given away in electrical and optical equipment, textiles and clothing.

Consumer brands are by no means everything to the future of China. It is beginning to export real expertise that should bring profits in areas such as infrastructure. This was underlined last week when China General Nuclear Power Corporation struck a deal to build a large nuclear energy plant in western England.

Chinese companies are also making strides in other less visible areas. The telecommunications equipment maker Huawei may not sell much to consumers, but elsewhere in the developed world and emerging economies it is becoming a real force.

However, branding in consumption is hugely important – it carries intellectual property and goodwill that confer higher margins and higher profits.

Chinese brands are beginning to make headway in some areas – particularly in fast-moving consumer goods. Jia Duo Bao, a kind of cold herbal tea in a red can, outsells Coca-Cola many times over in China even though it is twice the price, says Mr Rein.

Kiki Fan of market research company Neilsen says brands like this are no longer trying to fight multinationals head on, but are appealing to traditional beliefs about health and the properties of certain herbs or ingredients. “Some local brands better understand how to appeal to traditional ideas and use natural products to leverage off those local beliefs,” she says.

Arnaud Debane of Superbrands China says that local brands are even beginning to make headway in the more commoditised end of sophisticated products such as lower-cost smartphones, or television sets.

Even where foreign brands dominate preferences, such as cars, China can retain more wealth. This is partly through local brands such as Great Wall selling more cars than show up in preference surveys, but also through retaining more of the process of making and delivering the goods in the country, according to Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief emerging markets economist at BBVA.

“Logistics costs can be very large, so the more of the supply chain you control, the more value you can hold,” she says.

If China can follow its neighbours and develop its own powerful brands like Samsung of South Korea, or Toyota of Japan, it can sell not only to its own 1.35bn people but to billions of others all over the world.

If it does not build or buy such brands there is a risk that its consistent trade surpluses will become deficits in the decades ahead. That is not what the push to rebalance China’s economy towards consumerism is supposed to do.
在成都市中心新世界百货(New World Department Store)卖男装的那一层，你会发现在美国或者欧洲任意一个二线城市所能看到的那种快时尚服装。成都是一座位于中国西部的城市，拥有1400万人口。

许多铺面挂的都是英文招牌，但店内服装的品牌名称却令人陌生。“I’m David”销售的是城市休闲服装，“Scofield”旨在打造一股英伦风，“Mind Bridge”和“Gather Jewels”走的都是常青藤联盟预科学校的学生风格。

这些品牌看起来或许像模像样，但它们很难与优衣库(Uniqlo)、Zara以及H&M抗衡，这三大外资品牌在附近都有自己的门店。

中国正力图通过刺激消费支出来平衡经济结构，以摆脱严重依赖工厂及地产投资的增长模式，上文提及的这类品牌反映出了中国在这个过程中所面临的挑战和机遇。

中国消费者喜欢外国商品。不论是运动鞋、汽车、电视、手机、化妆品抑或是尿布，调查结果都是外国品牌占优势。

中国市场研究集团(China Market Research)的雷小山(Shaun Rein)表示，中国民众相信外国品牌不会偷工减料，而且与本土品牌相比有更加深厚的品牌传统。

随着中国民众愈发中产化并且在非必需品方面的支出越来越多，中国面临着一个问题：民众购买的外国商品越多，就有越多的中国发展成果流入其他国家的企业主手中，相应地，中国企业的利润水平就越低，可再投入国内电子等行业创新及技术研发的资金规模也就越小。

当美国在二战后迎来消费繁荣期时，世界的全球化程度远低于今日水平——美国人的绝大部分消费支出流向了美国人自己所有的企业手中。除非中国改变发展路径，财富从中国流向外国企业的趋势将影响中国以一种可持续且更加公平的方式走向富裕的能力。

中国缺乏受欢迎品牌的事实已经在某种程度上反映在了中国与其他国家的贸易平衡上。中国拥有巨额的名义贸易顺差，但当经济学家对贸易数据进行调整，加上中国生产商品在国内消费部分的价值，并减去所生产商品在海外消费部分的价值时，得到的结果则勾勒出了一个完全不同的故事。

根据西班牙对外银行(BBVA)经济学家们运用增加值方法的计算，中国对美国的贸易顺差从1890亿美元下降到了1270亿美元。造成这一降幅的主要原因在于电子及光学设备、纺织品和服装等领域的价值扣减。

中国的未来并非只取决于消费品牌的发展状况。中国已经开始在基建等领域向外输出专业技术，并有望获得盈利。中国广核集团(China General Nuclear Power Corporation)就于上周达成了一项协议，将在英格兰西部参与建设一座大型核电站。

中国企业还在其他不太引人注意的领域高歌猛进。电信设备制造商华为(Huawei)或许较少直接面对终端消费者，但它在发达国家和新兴经济体中正在发展壮大。

但消费品领域的品牌建设仍然非常重要——品牌具有知识产权和商誉，这能带来更高的利润率以及更大的利润规模。

中国品牌已经开始在某些领域取得发展，主要是快速消费品。加多宝是一种红罐包装的中草本凉茶；雷小山指出，加多宝在中国的销量较可口可乐(Coca-Cola)高出数倍，而价格是可口可乐的两倍。

市场研究公司尼尔森(Neilsen)的范奕瑾(Kiki Fan)表示，像加多宝这样的品牌已经不再试图与跨国公司正面竞争，而是借助有关健康的传统观念以及某些草药或成分的效果来吸引消费者。她指出：“一些中国本土品牌更了解如何迎合传统观念，并借助这些观念来推广含天然成分的产品。”

Superbrands China的阿诺?迪班(Arnaud Debane)表示，中国本土品牌甚至已经开始在低成本智能手机、电视机等商品化程度更高的复杂产品领域取得进展。

即使是在外国品牌明显更受消费者青睐的领域，如汽车，中国也已经能把更多的财富保留在国内。西班牙对外银行首席新兴市场经济学家阿莉西亚?加西亚-埃雷罗(Alicia Garcia-Herrero)指出，部分原因在于长城汽车(Great Wall)等国产品牌的实际销量要好于消费者偏好调查所反映的情况，此外与商品在中国国内的生产和运输流程也很有关系。

她表示：“物流成本可能非常高昂，因此整条供应链中你控制的部分越多，就能拥有更多价值。”

如果中国能像邻国一样，发展出像韩国三星(Samsung)或者日本丰田(Toyota)那样的大品牌，就不仅可以打开国内13.5亿人的市场，同时还能进入全球数十亿人的市场。

如果中国不能打造出或者收购此类品牌，那么在未来的几十年中，中国持续多年的贸易顺差就有转为逆差的风险，而这并不是中国经济再平衡战略——向消费驱动型转变——的本意。