Reuters-Multinationals plan moves to minimise China risk ECB survey shows
November 6, 2023 2 min 326 words
这则报道揭示了跨国公司在中国风险上的担忧，以及它们为降低这些风险而采取的举措。报告指出，超过40%的受访跨国公司计划在未来数年内将生产转移到政治友好的国家，主要原因是与中国有关的风险。这表明中国在全球供应链中的地位可能出现变化。 疫情和乌克兰战争的影响已经导致企业开始重新考虑其生产基地，但迄今为止尚无大规模实证证据。欧洲央行的调查显示，有一部分企业计划将生产地点更接近销售点，这是一种趋势。此外，还有一部分企业打算将一些运营活动迁移到更友好的地点，这是一种新现象。 这一现象可能对欧盟产生负面影响，因为有更多的公司计划将生产移出欧盟，而不是将其引入。这可能会对就业产生“重大”影响，同时也可能引发通货膨胀，因为近一半的企业表示他们预计这些变化将导致价格上涨。 这一报道揭示了全球供应链正在经历变革，企业对中国的依赖正在受到质疑。这对全球经济和地缘政治格局都有深远的影响。在这个背景下，跨国公司需要谨慎权衡风险和机会，以确保他们的业务持续稳健发展。
More than 40% of multinational firms surveyed by the European Central Bank expect to move production to politically friendlier countries in the coming years, with risk related to China cited as the main concern, a paper showed on Monday.
Firms have increasingly discussed shifting production sites after the pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine disrupted value chains, but there has been little empirical evidence of mass relocations.
Seeking on-the-ground confirmation, the ECB surveyed 65 very large firms with a global footprint and 49% said they were looking to "near-shore", or bring production closer to the point of sales.
In total, 42% wanted to "friend-shore" some operations, or move them to more welcoming locations.
"As to those countries which posed – or could pose – a risk to supply chains in their sector more generally, two-thirds of all respondents cited China," the ECB said in an Economic Bulletin article.
More than half of the firms sourced critical materials from a specific country or small number of countries, and nearly all said that these supplies now faced elevated risk.
"A large majority of these identified China as that country, or one of those countries, with all of them considering this an elevated risk," the ECB added.
Near-shoring was already a tendency in recent years but friend-shoring is a new phenomenon as only 11% said they were already pursuing such a strategy in the past five years.
The European Union is still likely to be a loser in such corporate movements as the number or firms looking to move production out of the bloc remains larger than the number moving it in, and this could have a "significant" impact on employment.
The moves could also fuel inflation as close to half of firms said they expected the changes to result in higher prices, the paper added.