纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英中国一季度GDP同比增长53高于市场预期

The Chinese economy grew more than expected in the first three months of the year, new data shows, as China built more factories and exported huge amounts of goods to counter a severe real estate crisis and sluggish spending at home.

新数据显示，随着中国建造更多工厂，出口大量商品，以应对严重的房地产危机和国内消费低迷，今年前三个月，中国经济增长超过预期。

To stimulate growth, China, the world’s second-largest economy, turned to a familiar tactic: investing heavily in its manufacturing sector, including a binge of new factories that have helped to propel sales around the world of solar panels, electric cars and other products.

为刺激增长，世界第二大经济体中国采取了一种熟悉的策略：大举投资制造业，包括大量新建工厂，这有助于推动太阳能电池板、电动汽车和其他产品在全球的销售。

But China’s bet on exports has worried many foreign countries and companies. They fear that a flood of Chinese shipments to distant markets may undermine their manufacturing industries and lead to layoffs.

但中国对出口的押注令许多国家及其企业感到担忧。它们担心大量中国商品涌向远方的市场会破坏它们的制造业，导致裁员。

On Tuesday, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said the economy grew 1.6 percent in the first quarter over the previous three months. When projected out for the entire year, the first-quarter data indicates that China’s economy was growing at an annual rate of about 6.6 percent.

周二，中国国家统计局表示，第一季度经济较前三个月增长了1.6%。如果推算全年，第一季度的数据表明中国经济年增长率约为6.6%。

“The national economy made a good start,” said Sheng Laiyun, deputy director of the statistics bureau, while cautioning that “the foundation for stable and sound economic growth is not solid yet.”

国民经济“开局良好”，国家统计局副局长盛来运说，同时也谨慎表示“经济稳定向好基础尚不牢固”。

Retail sales increased at a modest pace of 4.7 percent compared with the first three months of last year, and were particularly weak in March.

零售总额上升4.7%，与去年前三个月相比幅度不大，3月尤其疲软。

China needs robust consumer spending  to bring down persistently high youth unemployment and to help companies and households cope with very high levels of debt.

中国需要强劲的消费者支出，以降低居高不下的青年失业率，并帮助企业和家庭应对极高的债务水平。

Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York warned last month that China is experiencing a “sugar high” of factory construction fueled by heavy bank lending.

纽约联邦储备银行经济学家上月发出警告，称中国在大举银行贷款推动下正经历工厂建造的“高糖效应”。

For the year, China has set a growth target of about 5 percent, a goal that many economists had viewed as ambitious, although some have recently upgraded their forecasts. Last year, China’s economy grew 5.2 percent.

中国已将今年的增长目标设定为5%左右，许多经济学家认为这一目标定得过高，尽管一些经济学家最近上调了预测。去年，中国经济增长了5.2%。

Output was 5.3 percent higher in the first three months of this year than during the same period last year, the statistics bureau announced on Tuesday, exceeding economists’ forecasts of an increase of 4.6 to 4.8 percent.

国家统计局周二宣布，今年前三个月的产出比去年同期增长了5.3%。这超过了经济学家预测的4.6%至4.8%的增幅。

A breakneck pace of factory investments, up 9.9 percent from a year ago, was central to China’s growth. Strong exports early this year also helped.

中国增长的核心是一股惊人的工厂投资潮，比去年增加了9.9%。今年初出口的强劲也有帮助。

The value of exports rose 7 percent in dollar terms in January and February from a year earlier, and 10 percent when measured in China’s currency, the renminbi. But the actual contribution from exports to the country’s economy was considerably greater, as falling prices obscured the full extent of China’s export gains.

1月和2月，出口额以美元计同比增长了7%，以人民币计增长了10%。但出口对中国经济的实际贡献远不止这些，因为价格下跌掩盖了中国出口收益的全貌。

Guo Tingting, a vice minister of commerce, said at a news conference last month that the physical volume of exports had climbed 20 percent in January and February over last year. Exports faltered somewhat in March, however.

商务部副部长郭婷婷在上个月的新闻发布会上表示，1月和2月的实际出口量比去年同期增长了20%。不过，3月份出口有所放缓。

With street festivals and other activities, the government has encouraged families to spend more even as many in China have stepped up their savings to offset a recent nosedive in the value of their apartments.

政府通过街头节庆和其他活动鼓励家庭增加消费，尽管许多中国人增加了储蓄，以抵消最近房价暴跌的影响。

Domestic tourism spending and box office ticket sales both rose during Lunar New Year in February, easily exceeding levels before the Covid-19 pandemic. Smartphone sales have also climbed — although not for Apple — as Chinese buyers increasingly choose local brands.

二月的农历新年期间，国内旅游支出和电影票房双双增长，轻松超越疫情前的水平。智能手机销量也在上升，尽管苹果除外，因为中国消费者越来越倾向于选择本土品牌。

Broadly falling prices, a phenomenon that can become entrenched in deflation, continue to be a problem, particularly for exports and at the wholesale level. Chinese companies have been vying to cut export prices and win a bigger share of global markets, even when this means incurring heavy losses.

物价普遍下跌——这可能通货紧缩的一个根深蒂固的现象——仍然是一个问题，特别是对出口和批发而言。中国企业一直在竞相降低出口价格，在全球市场获得更大的份额，即使这意味着要蒙受巨大损失。

During top-level meetings earlier this month with Chinese officials, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen warned that flooding markets with exports would disrupt supply chains and threaten industries and jobs. Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany expressed similar concerns while on a visit to China, though he also cautioned against protectionism in Europe.

在本月早些时候与中国官员举行的高级会议上，财长耶伦警告，向市场大量输出产品会破坏供应链，威胁行业和就业。德国总理肖尔茨在一次访华期间也表达了类似的担忧，但他也警告欧洲要警惕保护主义。

China meanwhile is experiencing a deep slump in housing construction and apartment prices. The construction of homes — and the production of steel, glass and other materials for the them — was the biggest driver of growth in China for many years. 

与此同时，中国住房建设减少、住宅价格严重下滑。多年来，住房建设——以及钢材、玻璃和其他住房材料的生产——是中国经济增长的最大驱动力。

But sales of new apartments have fallen fairly steadily since the start of 2022. Few construction projects are now being started, as dozens of insolvent or nearly insolvent developers struggle to finish dwellings they have previously promised to buyers. Investment in real estate projects plunged 9.5 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier.

但自2022年初以来，新房销售量持续下降。随着数十家资不抵债或濒临破产的开发商正竭力完成之前向购房者承诺的住宅项目，目前新开工项目寥寥无几。第一季度房地产项目投资较去年同期大幅下跌9.5%。

Chinese officials blame weaknesses in the Chinese economy partly on high overseas interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation in the United States. Those rates have made it more attractive for Chinese families and companies to move money out of China, where interest rates are low, to foreign countries where rates are higher.

中国官员将中国经济的疲软部分归咎于美联储为应对美国通胀而制定的海外高利率。这些利率使得中国家庭和企业更倾向于将资金从利率较低的中国转移到利率较高的海外。

“The negative impact of the high interest rate environment on the economy is continuing,” said Liu Haoling, the president of the China Investment Corporation, which is China’s sovereign wealth fund. He spoke in late March at the China Development Forum, a meeting in Beijing of policymakers and executives.

3月底，中国主权财富基金中国投资有限责任公司总经理刘浩凌在中国发展高层论坛上表示，“高利率对经济的负面影响不断显现。”

China’s manufacturing juggernaut, underpinned by years of policy directives and financial support from Beijing to local governments and companies, has made the country’s goods among the world’s cheapest. The U.S. government disclosed last week that average prices for imports from China were down 2.6 percent in March from a year earlier.

在中国政府多年来对地方政府和企业的政策指导和财政支持下，中国的制造业巨头使该国制造的商品成为全球最便宜的商品之一。美国政府上周披露，3月份从中国进口商品的平均价格同比下降了2.6%。

China has required companies to invest more in research and development, in the hope that a wave of innovation will spur economic development.

中国要求企业加大研发投入，希望用一波创新浪潮来刺激经济发展。

The country is also requiring factories to pursue greater automation. “By 2025, we will have realized a new type of industrialization,” Jin Zhuanglong, the minister of industry and information technology, said at the China Development Forum, noting that China already produces more than 30 percent of the world’s manufactured goods.

该国还要求工厂提高自动化程度。“到2025年，我们将实现新型工业化，”工业和信息化部部长金壮龙在中国发展高层论坛上表示，并指出中国已经生产了全球30%以上的制成品。

Many Chinese households have borrowed heavily to invest in apartments and are responding to falling home prices by cutting back their spending. That makes China more dependent on exports to sell its fast-rising industrial output.

许多中国家庭为了投资公寓房产而大幅借贷，如今通过削减支出来应对房价下跌。这导致中国更加依赖出口来对外销售其快速增加的工业产出。

 “Chinese companies, across a wide range of sectors, now produce far more than domestic consumption can absorb,” the Rhodium Group, a consulting firm, said in a report in late March.

荣鼎咨询在3月底的一份报告中写道：“中国各行各业的企业现在的产量远远超出了国内消费所能吸收的水平。”

People’s wariness about spending is something Li Zhenya sees daily. He manages Izakaya Jiuben, a Japanese restaurant in the Beijing neighborhood of Wangjing, once home to some of China’s biggest tech companies.

李振亚（音）每天都能看到人们对于消费的谨慎态度。他在北京的望京经营一家名叫九本居酒屋的日餐厅，望京曾经是中国一些最大科技公司的所在地。

A few years ago, workers lined up outside the restaurant, pouring out of nearby offices to spend their hard-earned money in short breaks between long shifts. These days, many of the restaurant’s seats are empty at lunch and dinner.

几年前，上班族从附近的写字楼里涌出，在他的餐厅外排队等座，在长时间轮班的间隙花掉辛苦赚来的钱。而现在，餐厅的许多座位在午餐和晚餐时间都是空的。

“People’s desire to consume is not that high now,” Mr. Li at Jiuben said. The restaurant, he said, pulls in about $2,156 a day in revenue, about half its sales just a few years ago.

“现在人们的消费欲望没那么高了，”李振亚说。他表示，餐厅现在每天的流水在1.5万左右，大约是几年前的一半。

“I’m losing money running the restaurant,” he said.

“我在亏本经营，”他说。

Jiuben is on the fourth floor of Pano City Mall, where restaurants advertising Korean, Japanese and Chinese food operate next to empty storefronts. Some places look abandoned: The lights are off but a pile of takeaway boxes sits by the till, lamps still hanging or chairs and tables intact.

九本居酒屋位于望京新荟城三楼，这个商场聚集了韩餐、日餐和中餐，旁边许多店面都空着。有些地方看起来像是废弃了一般：灯都关着，但收银台旁放着一堆外卖盒子，灯还挂着，桌椅都没有被动过。

Centered around three curved, pebble-like buildings designed by Zaha Hadid, the neighborhood of Wangjing was once a hub of activity for the capital’s busiest workers. Restaurants and shops benefited from the presence of companies like Alibaba, JD.com and Meituan.

以扎哈·哈迪德设计的三座弧形鹅卵石状建筑为中心，望京曾经是北京最繁忙的打工人活动中心。由于阿里巴巴、京东和美团等公司的入驻，周边的餐馆和商店都大为受益。

“The lights used to be on when nighttime fell, but now at least half of the lights are off,” Mr. Li said.

“以前夜幕降临的时候，灯火通明，但现在至少有一半的灯都是关着的，”李振亚说

A government crackdown starting in 2020 pushed companies to cull jobs. Others left Wangjing. Covid-19 restrictions that froze the neighborhood for weeks at a time made it hard for small businesses in Wangjing to recover.

政府从2020年开始的打击行动促使企业裁员。还有一些企业搬离望京。新冠疫情期间，防控措施使望京地区动辄数周停摆，这里的小企业更是难以恢复元气。

“The epidemic led to a cautiousness in consumption,” said Kou Yueyuan, the owner of Smoon Bakery, down the street from Pano City. “Customers are obviously quite price-sensitive,” Ms. Kou said.

“疫情让人们在消费上变得谨慎，”与新荟城在同一条街的斯慕磨坊的老板寇月圆（音）说。“顾客显然对价格非常敏感。”

Ms. Kou started her business more than eight years ago, selling baked goods like bitter melon bagels and ube mochi twists. Now she places less emphasis on developing new baked goods with different flavors. Instead, she focuses on keeping costs low so that the bakery can offer cheaper prices.

寇月圆8年多前开始了她的生意，销售苦瓜贝果和麻糬等烘焙食品。现在，她不再像过去那样花精力开发不同口味的新品种。相反，她专注于保持低成本，这样面包店就能提供更便宜的价格。