[转帖] [2011.09.24] Commodities: Crowded out 原材料价格挤压富国收入

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http://www.ecocn.org/bbs.php?mod=viewthread&tid=58578
Commodities
商品价格

Crowded out
挤压富裕国家收入

Chinese demand had ended a century of steadily falling raw-material costs for rich-world consumers
中国的需求终结了富裕世界消费者稳步下滑了一个世纪的原材料成本

Sep 24th 2011 | from the print edition

LOOK OUT ON any day from Pier Two at the Tubarão Port complex in Brazil and you will see at least half a dozen ships on the horizon. The queue of waiting vessels allows the port’s loading manager, Leonardo Barone, to keep its three piers in constant use. Tubarão is owned by Vale, the world’s largest iron-ore company. A record 104m tonnes of ore was shipped from here last year.

任何一天，只要你站在巴西鯊魚港（Tubarão）的二号码头往外看，都能看见地平线上至少有六艘船只。排队等待的轮船，让港口的装载经理Leonardo Barone能保持三个码头的日夜运转。鯊魚港口属于巴西淡水河谷公司——世界最大的铁矿石公司。去年从这里装运的矿石创下了1.04亿吨的纪录。

Back from the water’s edge a phalanx of huge dumpers unload iron ore from the trains arriving from Vale’s mines in Minas Gerais. The 905km railroad carries 40% of Brazil’s rail freight on just 3% of its track. A standard freight train on this line has 252 carriages and three locomotives. Around 4,000 carriages are emptied in Tubarão each day.

岸上，密集的巨型装卸车从火车上卸下铁矿石，这是从淡水河谷位于大矿州（MINAS GERAIS）的矿山中开来的火车。这条905公里的铁路，只占巴西铁路总里程的3%，却运输了巴西40%的货运量。这条线路运行的标准货车有252个车皮、三个火车机车。每天大概有4000个车皮被卸载。

The unloaded ore is blended and stockpiled in a vast yard enclosed by fine-mesh screens to stop the dust from blowing towards the nearby city of Vitória. Then it is scooped by giant rotating buckets onto a moving belt and conveyed to a long chute at the pier where it is poured into the hold of a waiting vessel.

卸下的矿石堆积在一个巨大的货场上，上面盖着细眼铁丝网，以避免灰尘吹向附近的维多利亚城市。矿石被巨型旋转铲斗铲至正在运转的传送带上，然后送往一个长长的斜槽，最后被源源不断地注入等待装运的轮船船舱。

The port’s construction in the mid-1960s was sponsored by steelmakers from Japan. Today Brazil’s main customer is China, which takes 15% of its exports (mostly iron ore, soyabeans and oil), up from almost nothing ten years ago. The cargo that the ships are queuing up for at Tubarão has become far more valuable. Iron ore now fetches $178 a tonne, compared with $13 a tonne in 2001.

这个港口的设施是在20世纪60年代日本钢铁企业赞助修建的。现在巴西的主要客户是中国，出口数量占其总额的15%（主要是铁矿石、大豆和油），而十年前几乎没有出口。现在在鯊魚港港口等候装运的货物值钱的多了。铁矿石价格达到了每吨178美元，而2001年每吨只有13美元。

Broader measures of raw-material costs have jumped as well. The Economist’s index of non-oil commodity prices has trebled in the past decade. The recent surge has reversed a downward trend that had lasted a century. Industrial raw-material prices fell by around 80% in real terms between 1845, when The Economist began collecting data, and their low point in 2002 (see chart 3). But much of the ground lost over 150 years has been recovered in the space of just a decade.



同样，更大范围的原材料成本已经飙升。最近的急剧攀升已经逆转了持续一个世纪的下降趋势。在过去的十年，《经济学人》非石油商品价格指数增加了两倍。自《经济学人》1845年开始收集数据至2002年最低点的期间，工业原材料价格实际下降了80%左右。但是许多在150年里丢失的地盘，仅仅十年时间就被收复。

This has raised the incomes of commodity-rich countries such as Brazil and Australia as well as parts of Africa. It has also caused even sober analysts to speak of a “new paradigm” in commodity markets. Even though GDP has slowed to a near-standstill in many parts of the rich world, the price of crude oil is close to $100 a barrel—as high in real terms as after the oil shocks of the 1970s (see chart 4).



价格的攀升给资源丰富的国家，如巴西、澳大利亚和非洲的部分国家，增加了收入。这一现象甚至导致了冷静的分析师们称其为商品市场的“新的典范”。尽管富裕世界中的许多国家GDP增长接近停滞状态，但原油价格已经接近每桶100美元，与20世纪70年代石油暴涨后的价格实际上一样高。

What accounts for this turnaround? The price spikes over the past century were linked to interruptions in supply, notably during the first world war. But recent price rises have been too broad-based and long-lasting to be adequately explained by frost or bad harvests. Nor is it obvious that producers are hoarding supplies. At Tubarão everybody is straining to get the ore onto the ships more quickly. Valuable time is lost in docking and in starting the loading.

是什么导致了这种逆转？过去的一个世纪中，价格的猛涨主要源自供给的干涉，尤其是在第一次世界大战期间。但最近如此大范围、长时间的价格上升，已经难以用大雾或者收成不好来恰当解释。显然也不是生产者在囤积产品。在鯊魚港，每个人都在竭尽全力地让装船能够更快一些，人们嫌货船在入坞和装载时太慢，浪费了宝贵的时间。

Optimists bet on human ingenuity to spring the Malthusian trap, as it has done so often before
乐观主义者押注人类智慧能突破马尔萨斯陷阱，就像过去已经多次发生的一样

There is a more straightforward explanation for the scarcity: the surge in commodity prices is simply the result of exploding demand and sluggish supply. The demand side has been boosted by industrial development unprecedented in its size, speed and breadth, led by China but not confined to it. Growth in emerging markets is both rapid and resource-intensive. The IMF estimates that in a middle-income country a 1% rise in GDP increases demand for energy by the same percentage. Rich economies are far less energy-hungry: the oil intensity of OECD countries has steadily fallen in recent years.

有一个更直接的商品短缺的解释：商品价格的暴涨只不过是需求急剧扩大和供应缓慢增长的结果。由中国及其他国家引领的工业以前所未有的规模、速度和范围发展，激发了大量需求。新兴市场的发展不仅速度很快，而且是资源密集型的发展。国际货币基金组织预计，在中等收入国家，GDP每增加1%，能源需求就会增加1%。发达国家经济已远非高能耗经济，近年来经合组织国家石油强度在稳步下降。



China’s appetite for raw materials is particularly voracious because of the country’s size and its high investment rate. Though it accounts for only about one-eighth of global output, China uses up between a third and half of the world’s annual production of iron ore, aluminium, lead and other non-precious metals (see chart 5). Most of the energy for Chinese industry comes from coal—a dirty fuel that contributes to China’s poor air quality. Its consumption of oil roughly tallies with the economy’s size but is likely to grow faster than GDP as China gets richer and buys more cars.

中国的规模和高投资率，导致其原材料需求特别难以满足。中国的产出占全球的八分之一，但中国消耗了全球每年三分之一至二分之一的铁矿石、铝、铅和其他非贵金属（见图表）。中国工业主要能源来自于煤炭——给中国带来糟糕空气的肮脏燃料。中国对石油的消耗与其经济规模基本一致，但随着中国越来越富裕、购买的汽车越来越多，石油消耗可能会快于GDP的增长。

Supply has struggled to keep pace with this burgeoning demand. The world’s iron-ore production has doubled over the past decade but prices have risen 13-fold. The metal content of copper ore has been falling since the mid-1990s as existing mines are depleted. This mismatch between demand and supply is an age-old problem in commodity markets. It takes years to find and develop new mines and oil reservoirs and to build the infrastructure (rigs, pipelines, railways, ports) to bring the commodities to market. Supply responds slowly to price increases and delay often leads to excessive investment which then depresses prices.

供应也在挣扎着赶上需求快速扩大的步伐。全球铁矿石产量较过去提升了两倍，但价格上升了十三倍。自20世纪90年代中期以来，随着现有的矿山开采完毕，铜矿的品位已经下降。在商品市场中，需求和供给的错配是一个古老的问题。要将新的商品投入到市场中，需要花很多年的时间来寻找和开发新的矿山和油田，以及建设基础设施（钻探设备、管道、铁路、码头）。供应的增长慢于价格的增长，同时这种滞后引发投资过剩，从而打压价格。

The extractive industries had only just recovered from such a binge when prices began to rise again. By the start of the millennium a long bear market in commodities had purged the excesses of the 1970s, says Dylan Grice at Société Générale. The sector was poised for contraction but instead faced the biggest and fastest industrialisation in history.

法国兴业银行达兰•格利斯（Dylan Grice）说，千年伊始，商品市场长期的熊市淘汰了采掘业1970年代的过量产能。该产业已收缩平衡，但反而遭遇了历史上最大、最快的工业化浪潮。当价格开始上升时，采掘业才从狂欢中刚刚复苏。

The supply of commodities is again slowly catching up. The big reserves are mainly in remote and sparsely populated areas. That is in part why the economies of Australia, Canada, Brazil and sub-Saharan Africa have been growing quickly. Brazil is blessed with timber, exceptionally fertile land, metal ores and now oil reserves—though the biggest of these are in hard-to-reach places, far off the coast and in deep water beneath a layer of salt. There is now a shortage of geologists who can help with the search for oil. OGX, an oil firm founded by Eike Batista, a Brazilian magnate, has tempted some retired ones back to work.

商品供给方又一次在缓慢跟上。其主要的储备集中在遥远和人迹稀少的地方。某种程度上，这也是澳大利亚、加拿大、巴西、非洲撒哈拉沙漠南部地区快速发展的原因。巴西主要归功于木材、特别肥沃的土地、金属矿，还有现在的石油储备——尽管储量最大的部分在难以到达、远离海岸线的地方，并且是在盐层下面的深水里。现在能帮助找到原油的地质学家很短缺。OGX，巴西富豪埃克•巴蒂斯塔创立的石油企业，已经吸引了一些退休的专家回去工作。

Brazil’s offshore oil will be expensive and difficult to recover. If this is what the world is relying on, say the pessimists, the shortage of oil is truly critical. They argue that the resource limits to growth first noted by Thomas Malthus in the late 18th century still apply. Optimists bet on human ingenuity to spring the Malthusian trap, as it has done so often before.

巴西的海上石油将会昂贵并且难以开采。悲观者说，如果世界真的依赖它，原油短缺将会十分严重。他们称，19世纪后期马尔萨斯率先提出的资源对经济增长的制约作用，仍然适用。乐观主义者押注人类智慧能突破马尔萨斯陷阱，就像过去已经多次发生的一样

Why it matters
为什么重要

The imbalance in commodity markets is likely to persist at least until resource-hungry countries become richer and new supplies come on stream. In the meantime the surge in emerging-market demand will continue to hurt the advanced economies. The rise in oil and commodity prices has pushed up inflation in rich countries and acted like a tax on consumers.

可能只有到资源高消耗国家变得更加富裕和新的供给投入市场时，商品市场的平衡才会实现。在此之前，新兴市场的巨大需求将会继续伤害发达国家。原油和商品价格的上涨推高了富裕国家的通货膨胀，这像在向消费者征税。

The IMF reckons that a 10% rise in oil prices knocks 0.2-0.3% off global GDP growth in the first year, but the impact on a big oil consumer like America is twice as large. The sluggish growth in America’s economy in the first half of this year was due in part to higher oil prices, which in turn were caused partly by strong GDP growth in China (though supply disruptions also played a role).

国际货币基金组织预计，10%的原油价格上升将会在第一年降低全球0.2%-0.3%的GDP增长速度，但给像美国一样的石油消费大国将会是两倍的影响。今年上半年美国经济增长缓慢，部分原因是较以前更高的油价造成的，反过来也可以说是中国强劲的GDP增长导致的（尽管供应不足也是主要因素）。

The commodities boom has also made monetary policy more complicated. Inflation targets allowed governments and central banks to argue that price stability and full employment were complementary goals. If too many workers were idle, that would bear down on prices and allow central banks to keep interest rates low to boost spending and jobs and to guard against deflation. For a decade after 1997 China’s effect on world prices had made life easier for the rich world’s central banks. Imports of cheap goods from China brought down prices in America and elsewhere, keeping inflation low. But now that Chinese wages are rising, the effect of the country’s rapid industrialisation on world commodity prices is pushing up rich-world inflation.

商品的繁荣同样使货币政策的制定更加复杂。通货膨胀控制目标让政府和中央银行能将价格稳定和充分就业列为补充目标。如果有太多的劳动者无所事事，这将使价格降低，中央银行将保持低利率来促进就业和消费，以防止紧缩。自1997年中国开始影响世界价格的十年里，富裕世界的中央银行过得很轻松。从中国进口便宜的货物，让美国和其他地方价格下降，通胀保持在低水平。但目前中国人的工资在上涨，中国快速工业化对世界商品价格的影响正在推高富裕世界的通胀水平。

Because of the persistent rise in commodity prices, inflation has not come down even though there is lots of slack in most advanced economies. The textbook response to commodity-led inflation is to regard it as temporary and ignore it. But that becomes harder if it persists and raises expectations of future inflation. In Britain, for instance, inflation has been above the Bank of England’s 2% target for most of the past four years, yet interest rates have been close to zero. Some complain that the inflation target has simply been abandoned.

尽管大多数发达国家很不景气，但由于商品价格持续升高，通货膨胀并没有下降。教科书称由商品驱动的通货膨胀是暂时的，可以忽略。但如果通胀持续并且对未来通胀的预期加重的话，通胀将会更加难以治理。例如在英国，通胀超出英格兰银行2%的目标已经接近四年，而利率已经接近于0。一些人抱怨说，通胀的目标已经完全被抛弃了。

Commodity prices are acting as regulators of global growth. The emerging markets are first in the queue for supplies because they are often able to use each extra barrel of oil or shipload of ore more gainfully. Their demand raises prices and lowers real incomes in the rich world, which gets crowded out. Rich countries had become used to unlimited access to cheap raw materials: prices had been falling for a century or more. Now there is competition for primary resources. Producers are benefiting and rich-world consumers are suffering, at precisely the time when they are also increasingly anxious about job security as China and India rise and rise.

商品价格就像全球增长的监管者。新兴市场在供给市场上排在第一位，因为他们总是能够使每一桶油或者矿石更赚钱。他们的需求推高了价格，富裕世界的收入被挤压导致下降。富国们已经习惯了无限制地获取廉价原材料：原材料价格已经下降了一个世纪甚至更长的时间。现在主要资源都有竞争。生产者正在受益，而富裕世界的消费者们正在煎熬，与此同时他们正在为中国和印度的不断发展而更加担心他们的工作问题。

from the print edition | Special report