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发表于 2004-2-25 14:11:29
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中国对钢铁的需求是不断扩大，需求量是非常大的。
投资这个行业非常有钱途。
大家读读“经济学人”对中国的基本原料的分析吧。对不起，大家，只有英文的。
China's material needs
“The hungry dragon”
Feb 19th 2004 | BEIJING, LONDON, NEW YORK AND TOKYO
From The Economist print edition
AFTER difficult times that had lasted nearly a decade, mineral and metals producers from around the world have seen their fortunes improve spectacularly during the past year. They largely have China's booming economy to thank for this. In 2003, China's GDP grew by a reported 9.1%, its fastest rate since 1997—driven by the material-intensive construction and automotive sectors. Ravenous China's oil imports rose by 30% last year, exceeding Japan's to become second only to America's. China accounted for half of the world's consumption of cement, 30% of its coal, and 36% of its steel (of which imports jumped by 50%), according to China's National Bureau for Statistics. Copper imports rose by 15%, and nickel imports more than doubled. This helped to lift The Economist metals-price index by around half from a year ago, and by 75% from its low after September 11th 2001.
This, in turn, has done wonders for the share prices of firms such as Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, WMC Resources, and Alcoa—each of which are up on a year ago, by 20%-90%. Goldman Sachs recently raised its profit forecast for these and similar firms, predicting that “China will remain a powerful driver of global demand growth for many commodities in 2004 and beyond”.
True, not everyone is happy. Rising global commodity and material prices hurt consumers everywhere, not least in America—though the fall of the dollar, in which many commodities are priced, should ease the pain of the price rises in much of the world, especially in Europe.
Higher input prices are hurting some of the marginal steel producers and copper smelters. Japan's Sumitomo Metal Industries and Nisshin Steel are switching to lower quality inputs to hold down costs: in fiscal 2004, Nisshin expects to raise its use of low-iron material by half to 30% of its total iron-ore consumption, compared with fiscal 2000. Recently, due to higher ore prices, several Japanese copper smelters said that they will cut production.
For the most part, though, the commodity and materials firms are being energised by the growth opportunity presented by China. David Humphreys, chief economist of London-based Rio Tinto, says that China will become increasingly central to his firm's planning, despite accounting for less than 10% of its current business. That figure understates China's significance, because “the truly important thing is the growth segment, and that is where China is so dominant. What is now taking place there is on a scale that has no real precedent.” For some commodities, such as iron ore, China in effect accounts for all the world-wide growth, he adds.
Rio Tinto plans to form a joint venture with Mitsui, Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Industries in western Australia to improve the efficiency of production and increase the speed with which output is shipped. Mitsui, which has an established partnership with China's mighty Shanghai Baosteel, plans to build ten more steel-processing plants in the country, raising capacity from 1.3m tonnes per year to 3m. Although BP last week said it has sold its 2.1% equity stake in China Petroleum and Chemical (Sinopec), the British oil giant still plans to invest a further $3 billion in China over the next five years, on top of the extensive activities it already has there.
China itself is doing its utmost to benefit from the strong demand it has created—and, it hopes, to reduce its exposure to supply bottlenecks, which have been a chronic headache. (In November, six Chinese copper smelters announced plans to cut back production because of inadequate supplies of copper concentrate.) One strategy is to acquire equity stakes in resource-based businesses around the world. This may be a good selling opportunity for overseas shareholders. Ren Haiping, of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, acknowledges that Chinese firms, with their state-owned, central-planning pedigrees, have much yet to learn about wheeling and dealing in the wider world. “They will, of course, make mistakes and bad deals, and there are lessons that will have to be learnt. But the government is prepared to tolerate this because it understands that this is the path China needs to take,” he says.
Spend, spend, spend
Notable examples of recently acquired Chinese stakes, which may or may not pay-off, include a planned joint-venture between Baosteel and Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, a Brazilian iron ore producer, whose sales to China grew by 33% a year in 1998-2002, to build one or two steel mills in Brazil, capable of producing 4m tonnes of steel a year. Worth perhaps $2 billion, it will be one of China's largest overseas investments so far. In January, Sinopec won a contract to develop natural gas in Saudi Arabia. China has also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in oil projects in Gabon and Algeria. And it is participating in aluminium, copper, nickel, and iron-ore projects in Jamaica, Zambia, Peru, Australia and Papua New Guinea.
The Aluminum Corporation of China recently announced plans to invest over $1 billion in a new aluminium project in Vietnam. It will not only provide most of the capital and technology, but also arrange the necessary railway construction. It plans at least ten other projects abroad to meet domestic demand for aluminium, which it expects to triple by 2020.
Though the future looks bright, there may be a few clouds on the horizon. The uncertain scale and effectiveness of Chinese activity in the raw materials markets ought to temper the optimism of foreign firms. So too should the risk that China's economy will go off the rails—though there have been encouraging signs of late that the government is applying some gentle pressure on the economic brakes to avoid unpleasantness later. It is also possible that today's high prices are giving misleadingly upbeat signals. Rick Holmes, a metals trader at Mitsui Australia, though generally bullish, says that a significant, but unknowable, portion of Chinese commodity buying is for arbitrage and speculation rather than physical demand.
Even so, dealing with China is far simpler for foreign commodity businesses than it is for other foreign direct investors, manufacturers or retailers. In China, as elsewhere, they need not worry about finicky or unfamiliar consumer tastes, trademark piracy or cut-rate copycat producers. As long as China needs more materials than it has, their businesses will thrive.
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