HONG KONG — As demand dwindles, steel prices in China have fallen 12 percent in the first five weeks of this year, almost as much as in all of 2014.
香港——随着需求的减少，中国钢材价格在今年的头五周下降了12%，几乎相当于2014年全年的降幅。The tonnage of China’s imports of rubber, oil, iron ore and other industrial materials also fell sharply in January. And the global market for bulk freighter charters is in free fall, already below levels in the worst days of the global financial crisis in late 2008 and early 2009.
今年1月，中国橡胶、石油、铁矿石及其他工业材料的进口量也急剧下降。全球散货船包租市场一落千丈，已经跌至2008年底2009年初全球金融危机期间，最糟糕的水平之下。
”In the past two months, it has been more or less a vertical correction, and this is a proxy for China,” said Basil M. Karatzas, a Manhattan ship broker.
曼哈顿的船舶经纪人巴西勒·M·卡拉察斯(Basil M. Karatzas)说，“过去两个月有些像是直线下降，这反映了中国的情况。”
Heavy industry in the country, the world’s second-largest economy, is experiencing a much sharper downturn than was apparent or expected even several weeks ago. That slowdown seems to be mirrored to a lesser extent in other sectors. But the full scope of China’s economic weakness is obscured by limited data, as the country prepares for a nationwide, weeklong holiday beginning Feb. 18, in observance of the Lunar New Year.
中国是世界第二大经济体，中国重工业的下滑程度，比几周前显示的情况或预期的情况都要糟糕。这种放缓似乎在其他领域也有较小程度的体现。但由于中国正在准备迎接从2月18日开始的长达一周的全国假日，以庆祝春节，因而数据有限，中国经济走软的总体情况并不明确。”It’s too early to be saying we’re moving toward disaster, but there’s nothing in this data to be cheery about,” said Louis Kuijs, the chief China economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland.
苏格兰皇家银行(Royal Bank of Scotland)首席中国经济师高路易(Louis Kuijs)说，“现在说我们正在走向灾难还为时过早，但这些数据不怎么令人高兴。”Following its standard practice, China’s National Bureau of Statistics will not release a wide range of monthly economic statistics for January — a month in which the timing of the Lunar New Year, from late January to mid-February, can distort figures. So investors, business executives and others will get only limited, partial figures on industrial production, real estate investment, retail sales and other crucial barometers until mid-March, when figures for all of January and February are scheduled to be released.
按照惯例，中国国家统计局不会全面公布1月份的各项经济数据。1月时春节即将到来，这种情况会对数据产生扭曲。因此，投资者、企业高管及其他人在3月中旬之前，只能看到有关工业生产、房地产投资、零售销售和其他关键指标的有限的部分数据。1月和2月的全部数据将于3月中旬发布。The People’s Bank of China, the central bank, signaled its concern last week when it unexpectedly cut the proportion of assets that banks must hold as reserves, freeing them to lend about $100 billion to businesses and consumers. The reserve requirement had not been cut since 2012.
中国的央行中国人民银行上周发出了担忧的信号，出人意料地降低了银行必须作为储备而持有资产的比例，释放了1000亿美元（约6000亿元人民币）的资金，为银行向企业和消费者发放贷款提供了空间。这是自2012年以来，央行首次下调存款准备金率。China’s General Administration of Customs released trade data on Sunday that showed a slight dip in exports. Imports plunged, although that was partly because the effect of falling tonnages of key commodities was compounded considerably by lower commodity prices.
中国海关总署周日公布的数据显示，出口额略有下降，进口额大幅下降。进口额降幅巨大的部分原因在于，关键大宗商品进口量下降的同时，这些商品价格也显著降低了。The statistics agency plans to release inflation data Tuesday morning in Beijing. Producer prices have been falling faster and faster since last July, partly because of lower commodity prices, and are expected to be down close to 4 percent in January compared with a year earlier. Consumer prices have nearly stopped rising.
国家统计局计划周二上午在北京公布通胀数据。去年7月以来，生产物价的下降也越来越快，其部分原因是大宗商品价格下降，根据预期1月的生产物价同比将下降近4%。消费物价几乎已经停止上涨。Some businesses selling consumer products are complaining of weak sales this winter. “Our business has slowed down in recent months; I think it has to do with the overall economic slowdown in China, as well as internationally,” said Fred Zhang, the sales manager at the Qingdao Oulang Hair Product Company, a small maker of wigs in Qingdao.
有些出售消费品的企业抱怨，今年冬季销售情况不景气。青岛小型假发制造商青岛欧朗发制品有限公司的销售经理弗雷德·张说，“最近几个月，我们的业务已经放缓了，我认为这与中国经济的整体走软有关。”China has many tools to halt a slowdown, although all of them have potentially undesirable side effects. The banking system is still under tight central government control and can be told to step up lending further. Overall credit, though, has already grown faster as a share of economic output since 2009 than practically anywhere except Ireland. Some restrictions on housing market speculation have been lifted, at the risk of making homes more expensive.
中国有许多可以阻止经济放缓的工具，不过都有潜在的副作用。银行系统仍然被中央政府严格控制，政府可能会命令银行进一步扩大贷款规模。然而，2009年以来，中国总信贷在经济产出中所占比例的增长速度，其实已经超过了除爱尔兰之外的所有经济体。一些旨在遏制房地产市场投机的限制政策已经取消，尽管这样有抬高房价的风险。A slowdown in home construction and car sales has contributed to trouble in the steel and iron ore sectors and in the energy sector. The tonnage of iron ore imports is down 9.3 percent in January from a year ago, while the tonnage of imports of refined products like gasoline and diesel was down 37.6 percent.
房屋建设和汽车销售的放缓，给炼钢和铁矿石行业，以及能源领域带来了困难。1月，铁矿石进口总量同比下降9.3%，而汽油和柴油等精炼石油产品的进口总量也下降了37.6%。Some of the slowdown in industrial commodity imports last month may reflect that many Chinese companies built above-average stockpiles last autumn as prices were falling, and now find themselves with scant room to store more. They also face losses on their earlier purchases, as prices have continued to drop.
上个月，工业用大宗商品进口的某些放缓迹象或许反映出，去年秋天价格下跌时，许多中国企业都积累了高于平均水平的库存，现在已经没有多少空间储存更多了。由于价格持续下降，它们过去采购的商品也可能会造成损失。In the iron ore sector last autumn, “they bought every single cargo, and they were able to buy at lower and lower prices,” said Jeffrey Landsberg, a commodity analyst and managing director of Commodore Research & Consultancy in New York.
大宗商品分析师、纽约Commodore研究与咨询公司的董事总经理杰弗里·兰兹伯格(Jeffrey Landsberg)说，去年秋季，在铁矿石部门，“它们买下了每一批货，而且还能以越来越低的价格买进。”With the purchases slowing, ship charters have slowed to a crawl. Large freighters that cost $8,000 to $9,000 a day to operate, plus $20,000 or more a day in interest payments and other ownership costs, are now leasing for about $4,000.
随着采购的步调放缓，包租船只的业务也几近停滞。大型货船每天的运营成本在8000到9000美元，再加上超过2万美元的利息以及其他成本，但现在的租金只有大约4000美元。The daily cost to charter a so-called capesize freighter, a large ship particularly used to supply China, has fallen fastest of all, down 75 percent since mid-November.
在所有船型中，包租海岬型船每天所需的花费降得最快，自11月中旬以来降了75%。这种大型货船经常被用来给中国运货。“It’s pretty grim at the moment,” said Tim Huxley, the chief executive of Wah Kwong Maritime Transport, a large Hong Kong shipping line. “The bulk carrier market is at the lowest it has been in 30 years.”
“目前的情况非常糟糕，”香港大型航运公司华光海运控股有限公司(Wah Kwong Maritime Transport Holdings)的首席执行官蒂莫西·赫胥黎(Timothy Huxley)说。“散装货轮市场目前处在30年来的最低点。”