logistics物流

Logistics 物流 The flow of things 货物流动 For an export superpower, China suffers from surprisingly inefficient logistics 作为出口大国，中国的物流效率之低令人吃惊 Jul 12th 2014 | SHANGHAI AND SUZHOU | From the print edition TWO examples of the infrastructure that has helped make China a mighty trading power can be found on the outskirts of Shanghai: Yangshan, the world’s busiest container port, and Pudong airport, the world’s third-biggest handler of air cargo. Radiating out across the country are more than 100,000km (62,000 miles) of expressways and a comparable length of railways. Given all this new infrastructure, you might expect China to have a world-class logistics industry, too. It does not. Logistics covers transportation, warehousing and the management of goods. Its Chinese translation, wu liu, literally means “the flow of things”. But that flow within the country is costly and cumbersome. Much of the investment in infrastructure has gone to lubricate exports. Now, as China’s government shifts its focus to consumption at home it is finding that the domestic logistics industry is woefully inefficient. 基础设施建设促使中国成为一个巨大的贸易强国。位于上海市效的两个例子能说明这一点。一个是世界最繁忙集装箱码头洋山港。一个是世界第三大空运货物基地浦东机场。辐射全国的高速公路超过10万公里以及相同长度的铁路网。有了这些基础设施，可能会觉得中国物流产业也应该是世界级的。结果是否定的。 物流包括运输，仓储和货物的管理。中文物流字面的意思为货物的流动。但在中国国内，物货流动成本高，且手续繁琐，基础设施的投入流向利润较高的出口行业。如今，当中国政府将目标转向国内消费时，发现国内物流产业效率十分低下。 Logistics spending is roughly equivalent to 18% of GDP, higher than in other developing countries (India and South Africa spend 13-14% of GDP) and double the level seen in the developed world. Li Keqiang, the prime minister, recently echoed industry’s complaints that sending goods from Shanghai to Beijing can cost more than sending them to America. 中国物流上的开销大概占GDP的18%，比其他发展中国家高（印度和南非物流开销为GDP的13-14%，是发达国家的2倍。国务院总理李克强最近重提了物流业的抱怨将货物从上海发到北京比发到美国的成本还要高。 Most warehouses are old and unmechanised. Goods are transferred up to a dozen times from vehicle to vehicle as they make their way across the country. There are no cargo hubs that help link freight from rail to road. The decrepit and overloaded lorries that ply the new highways are unable to find a return cargo on more than one third of their trips. 大多数仓库破旧，采用人工操作。货物在国内流通时被转运数十次。没连接铁路和公路的货运中心。老旧，超载的卡车在崭新的高速路上行驶，反程途中三分之一的行程空载。 China has over 700,000 trucking operators, most of them one-man outfits. (America has about 7,000.) Scale is essential to the business, but the top 20 firms together make up barely 2% of the market. Nancy Qian of KXTX, a logistics firm, observes that companies compete so fiercely on price that most barely make any money, and so lack the funds needed to modernise or achieve economies of scale. 中国有70万运输承包商，绝大多数是个体户。（美国有7000）。规模对这个行业至关重要。但排名前20的公司加起来只占市场的2%。物流公司KXTX的南茜钱说物流公司在价格上竞争激烈，大多数赚不到钱，缺少资金进行现代化装备或者获得规模经济。 The industry is carved into niches, making it hard for integrated service providers to emerge. Sleepy state-owned enterprises such as Sinotrans and China Post control the markets for air freight and domestic post. Foreign express-delivery firms are salivating over the market but FedEx and UPS, for example, have been granted only limited licences for domestic delivery. More importantly, foreign firms are burdened with high costs that make it hard to compete for frugal customers against lean local rivals. 物流业被划分成小部分，很难进行整合。效率低下的国企如中国外运和中国邮政控制着空运和国内邮包业务。国外快递公司垂涎这个市场。但只有联邦快递和UPS被授予有限的国内运输执照。最重要的是，外国公司成本高，很难于精打细算的本土竞争对手争夺省钱的客户。 For all firms, local or foreign, a tangle of regulations, local protectionism and corruption makes getting goods across China a problem. Logistics, broadly defined, falls under the authority of nine ministries and commissions. Local governments often levy taxes on operators and demand they obtain special licences to operate. There are also heavy tolls on China’s roads, and lorries are restricted from entering most urban areas so must transfer goods onto smaller vehicles.  所有公司，无论本土还是国外的，由于各种规章制度，本地保护和腐败等情况在全国运输时都会遭遇问题。广义上的物流，有9个部委管辖。本地政府向经营者征收重税，并要求特许执照才能营业。路上高速费也很贵，同时大多数城区不允许卡车进入，需要将货物转到小的车辆上。 The road ahead前景 The good news is that moves are afoot to improve the industry. The central government is concerned about its inefficiency and cost. At a meeting last month of the State Council, China’s cabinet, leaders approved a new plan for reform, though details are still being finalised. The goal is to lower costs and develop larger companies. 好消息是有助于产业发展的举措正在实施。中央政府已经关注到物流的低效和成本。在上月国务院的会议上，领导人批准一项新的改革计划，具体细节还待商榷。其目标是降低成本并发展较大的公司。 But the brighter hope for reform is coming from the private sector. Much money, including from private-equity funds, is now going into creating bigger logistics firms. Some four dozen deals have recently been done. Initiatives are also under way to organise data-sharing platforms so that trucking firms can match up with customers to reduce the number of empty return journeys. 改革中更大的希望来自于私人领域。包括私募股权基金在内的资金在用于成立更大的物流公司。大约50次左右的交易已完成。 数据分享平台也在组建中，这样运输公司可以满足客户的要求以减少空返的数量。 E-commerce firms in particular are worried that a bottleneck in logistics could choke off their spectacular recent growth. Even more than industrial customers, consumers demand high levels of customer service at low prices. Fox Chu of Accenture, a consultancy, observes that the average purchase online in China is below 100 yuan ($16), but he reckons the delivery cost of the last leg alone could be 8-15 yuan. 电商公司担心物流上的瓶颈会阻碍预期的增长。消费者甚至超越工业客户，要求以低价享受高水准的服务。咨询公司称中国网上购物平均花费低于100元，但他计算最后一公里的送递可能是8到15元。 Concerned about this, online retailers are taking matters into their own hands. JD, a leading e-commerce firm, is developing its own distribution network of warehouses, lorries and deliverymen. In this, it is inspired by the “asset heavy” approach taken by Amazon, an American e-commerce pioneer. Ye Lan, chief marketing officer of JD.com, said recently that the firm’s own logistics system can now reliably deliver goods either the same day or next day in some 300 cities across the country. Whether the firm can afford to expand its excellent logistics network to less populated areas remains to be seen. 考虑到这个问题，网上零售商自己处理。主要电商公司京东发展自己的配送网络包括仓储，货物，快递人员。这个灵感来自美国电商公司先驱亚马逊重资产方式。京东商城首席销售人员叶兰最近称公司的物流系统能在全国300座城市同一天或第二天送达货物。公司是否将其物流网络扩展到人口稀少的地区还有待观察。 Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce firm, prefers an “asset light” approach. Rather than owning its own delivery trucks, it has joined hands with a number of existing courier firms who plan to invest some 100 billion yuan to develop a “smart logistics” network relying on big data. Among other things, this coalition plans to analyse customer information so that resources can be deployed more efficiently. It has also recently entered into a strategic co-operation pact with China Post. By sharing warehouses, processing centres and delivery personnel, the firm hopes to be able to deliver online purchases within 24 hours even to small cities and villages. 中国最大的电商公司阿里巴巴偏爱轻资产方式。没有自己的运输卡车，他同现有的快递公司联手。这些快递公司计划投资1000亿元依靠大数据开发智能物流网络。最重要的是，联合能分析客户信息，资源能有效利用。最近，阿里巴巴与中国邮政开展战略合作。共享仓库，处理中心和送递人员，阿里巴巴希望能在24小时内运送网上购物，甚至能送达到小的城市和农村。 The future is mechanised未来属于机械化 To see where all this could be heading, visit a group of warehouses run by Global Logistic Properties (GLP) in Suzhou, not far from Shanghai. With over 500 warehouses in China, the Singaporean firm is the biggest foreign builder of logistics facilities in the country. It recently entered into a $2.5 billion partnership with several influential local firms. Jeffrey Schwartz, GLP’s boss, says that, whereas his clients were once focused on exports, most are now using his facilities to serve the local market. With warehouse space per person in China at less than a tenth the level in America, he believes growth will be “supercharged”. 想看看末来的物流是什么样子，那就到离上海不远位于苏州的普洛斯的几个仓库看看。这家新家坡公司在中国有超过500个仓库，是国外在中国最大的物流设施的提供商。最近，这家公司与几个有实力的本土公司开展25亿美元的合作。普洛斯 的老板杰佛里•施瓦兹说，他的客户曾经主要是出口，现在大多数使用它的设备服务本地市场。中国人均仓库面积不足美国的十分之一，他相信增长是巨大的。 GLP’s warehouse is large and well laid out, which helps clients organise their goods. With mechanisation, it can be run by just six people. Wireless scanners and bar codes enable inventory management to be digitised. A raised loading bay allows shipments, neatly stacked on palates, to be transferred by forklift truck into waiting lorries. Valuable goods such as integrated circuits are secured with electronic locks and tracked by GPS. If officials would just get out of the way, China’s domestic logistics system could yet take off. 普洛斯的仓库宽敞，布局完善，使客户能安排好货物。因为机械化操作，只用六个人就可以操作。无线扫描和条形码使库存管理数字化。倾斜的装载区码放整齐的货物通过叉车运到等待的卡车上。易损 的货物如集成电路板由电子锁保护，由GPS跟踪。如果官员能开放管制，中国国内物流系统将飞速发展。 remark:中国有70万运输承包商，绝大多数是个体户，而美国仅7000家。规模对该行业至关重要。但排名前20的公司总共只占2%的市场。物流公司KXTX的南茜钱说物流业在价格上竞争激烈，大多数赚不到钱，缺少资金采购现代化装备或者获得规模经济。老旧，超载的卡车在崭新的高速路上行驶，反程途中1/3行程空载 2/ 物流可不等于快递，中国物流上的开销约占GDP的18%，比其他发展中国家高（印度和南非物流开销为GDP的13-14%，是发达国家的2倍。总理最近重提了物流业的抱怨——将货物从上海发到北京比发到美国的成本还要高。大多数仓库破旧，采用人工操作。货物在国内流通时被转运数十次 3/ 所有公司，无论本土还是国外的，由于各种规章制度，本地保护和腐败等情况在全国运输时都会遭遇问题。广义上的物流，有9个部委管辖。地方政府向经营者征收重税，并要求特许执照才能营业。路上高速费也很贵，同时大多数城区不允许卡车进入，需要将货物转到小的车辆上