【汉贝托专栏】我们的战事在这里!
贸易谈判仍旧继续
尽管有着已知的分歧,但世界上两个最大经济体之间的贸易谈判仍在继续。在额外时段没有取得一致协商,美国开始了对5月10日以后装运的中国货物增加从10%到25%的关税。任何已经在海运或空运的货物仍将征收10%的税,从现在起,所有其他的货物将支付25%的税,列表上至少有超过3000亿美元的货物出口到美国。
正如你们大多数人都知道的,中国很快就进行了反击,并对进口到中国的美国商品征收更高或相近额度的关税。不幸的是,在这种情况下,贸易战升级到前所未有的高度,全世界正感受到它带来的疼痛。许多股市开盘时大幅走低,尤其是在美国,一旦确认了增税后,道琼斯指数就下跌了500多点。一些最重要的国际品牌股票价值受到冲击,其中最重要的例如:苹果。
这如同象棋游戏,不论棋子大小,每走一步都重要,都可能影响游戏的结果。谈判仍在继续,可能需要数周或数月,但我认为,最终两国将达成某种能够让两国都感到舒服的协议,哪怕这个协议对于某国比另一国更好,或者哪怕这个协议是暂时的,比如一两年。
我个人认为,不能否认的是由于中美贸易之间的不平衡,中国的处境可能更为艰难。此外,这个国家的经济也失去了一些动力。工业产值、零售销售和投资都在放缓,降幅超过经济学家预期。
从中国购买瓷砖的美国客户,包括我们自己的公司都放慢了新产品的采购进度,因为这些不确定性和不景气的未来,不单来自关税从10%到25%的增长,还有潜在的反倾销税调整似乎不会低。我个人直觉,关税增至25%,一些产品还是有出路的,特别是人人都已经在买的那些,但我不认为能挽救太多,至少目前看来。
对于陶瓷行业是一个巨大的打击,是或不是?嗯,这取决于你怎样看了。如果你把出口到美国的总销售额分到中国的总生产量中,它只占1%到2%,不会再多了。这是一个打击,但甚至还未成为潜在的致命打击。潜在的损失并不非常显著,可能不会对中国陶瓷行业造成太大的伤害。然而,对一些公司来说,它所带来的影响远不止于此。
据我所知,有一些公司高度依赖对美国的出口,其中一些公司的出口占其总产能的80%。对这些企业来说,前方道路艰难。非常困难!我甚至难以想象他们将如何拯救他们的公司。对于其他一些公司(也是大多数的公司),向美国出口的产品数量相当可观,它们对美国的出口占其全球出口总额的30%至40%,很可能占其公司总销售额的10%至20%。对这些企业来讲,无疑是一个巨大的打击,他们需要重大的战略调整,以避免由于销售下降造成的巨大经济损失。
我知道事实上,这些公司正在寻求短期和长期的潜在解决方案,以防这场战争持续升级,特别是对陶瓷行业更大的影响。我也不认为这些每年向美国出口超过2亿平方米的陶瓷公司,其中一些会对此无所作为。他们将探索所有不同的方式一定程度挽回这些失去的销售额,要么通过法律手段或其他方式,比如与美国没有贸易纠纷的国家或者与有进口税优惠政策的国家进行合作,开展采购交易,开办合资企业等各种方式。
我们都将拭目以待,当贸易战持续进行时,不同的公司会作何反应!与此同时,我们都别无选择,只能继续做得比以前更好,并期待最好的结果!
Trade talks continue
The trade talks between the two largest economies of the world continue despite their already known differences. After there was no negotiation agreed on the extra time given the USA started the increase of taxes of Chinese goods from 10% to 25% to any goods that were loaded after May 10. Anything that was already on the sea or going by air will still pay 10%, everything else from now on will pay 25% or at least on the list of more than 300 billion US Dollars of goods that are exported to America.
As most of you already know it didn’t take very long for China to retaliate and charge higher or similar increases to the United States goods that are imported by China. Unfortunately, in this case the trade war escalated to levels never seen and the world is feeling the pain. Many of the stock markets opened significantly lower, especially in the USA where the Dow Jones lost more than 500 points as soon as the tax increase was confirmed. The stock value of some of the most important brands in the world were impacted, among the most important: Apple.
This seems to be like a chess game where every move regardless of the importance of the pieces is important and could affect the game. The negotiations continue and could take weeks or months, but I think that at the end they will reach some sort of deal where both countries feel comfortable even if the deal is better for one country than the other or even if this deal is temporary, like for a year or two.
There is no denial in my personal opinion that because of the trade unbalance between China and the USA maybe China is in a more difficult situation. Besides the economy in the country has lost some steam. The industrial output, retail sales and investment all slowed down more than the economists forecasted.
The USA customers that buy ceramic tile from China including our very own company slowed down the purchasing of any new items due to the uncertainty and dark future of not only the increase from 10 to 25% but even the potential anti-dumping tax adjustment that don’t seem to be low. I have the gut feeling that even at 25% some things can be worked out, specially the items that everyone is already buying but I don’t think much can be saved at least for now.
For the ceramic industry is a big blow yes or no? Well, it depends on how you look at it. If you take the total export sales to the USA and divide that by the total installed capacity in China it is only 1 to 2% but no more than that. It is a hit but not even close of becoming a potential killing shot. The amount of the potential loss is not very significant and may not hurt the Chinese Ceramic Industry much. Nevertheless, to some companies is going to represent much more than that.
There are companies I know that depend highly on their exports to America with some of them exporting up to 80% of their total capacity. To these ones a very difficult future is awaiting. Very difficult! I don’t even want to think too much on how they are going to do to save their companies. To some others (a much larger amount of companies)export significant quantities to the USA and their exports to America represent 30 to 40% of their total exports world-wide and quite possibly 10 up to 20% of their total sales as a company. Definitely a big blow that demand important strategic adjustments in order to avoid big financial losses due to the decrease in sales.
I know as a fact that these companies are looking for potential solutions short term and longer term in case this war continues to escalate and specially affect specifically even more the ceramic industry. I also don’t think that all these companies that were exporting much more than 200 million square meters per year between all of them to the USA will do nothing about it. They will explore all the different ways that these sales could be somehow saved by either legal terms or by doing other things like partnerships,sourcing deals, joint ventures, or whatever with the countries that currently don’t have a trading issue with the USA or that have preferential import taxes.
We will all be watching and waiting to see what happens, how the different companies react while the trade war goes on! In the meantime, we all have no option but to continue doing things better than before and hoping for the best!
Humberto Valles
ICC General Manager
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