全球增長新引擎何在？

Perhaps the greatest unintended consequence of the past millennium was Columbus’s accidental encounter with the Americas in 1492. The Genovese explorer was attempting to do what Vasco da Gama would achieve six years later: discover the sea route to Asia. The Portuguese explorer, rather than travelling west across the Atlantic, travelled south and then east and realised Columbus’s dream by establishing the nautical connection between Europe and the fabled Indies.

上一個千年最大的意料之外的后果，或許就是1492年哥倫布(Columbus)誤打誤撞發(fā)現(xiàn)美洲大陸。這位熱那亞探險家原本試圖探索一條通往亞洲的海上通道——這條通道直到6年后才由葡萄牙探險家瓦斯科•達(dá)伽馬(Vasco da Gama)發(fā)現(xiàn)。達(dá)伽馬沒有向西穿過大西洋，而是向南航行，隨后折向東，開辟了歐洲通往傳說中的東印度(Indies)的海上通道，從而實現(xiàn)了哥倫布的夢想。

For the Europeans, the Indies had long been the source of essential spices that allowed them preserve food for winter, an advantage that meant they were a source of great wealth, even more so than the “incalculable amount of trade” Marco Polo suggested China offered.

當(dāng)時的東印度早已是歐洲人生活中不可缺少的香料的來源地，這些香料讓歐洲人能夠保存過冬的食物。東印度的這一條件意味著它是巨額財富的源泉，就這一點(diǎn)而言，據(jù)馬可•波羅(Marco Polo)所說提供“無法估量的貿(mào)易量”的中國都比不上它。

Da Gama’s 1498 breakthrough was the beginning of the end of the Asian bazaar that was Venice: the lucrative land-based trade of the Eurasian Silk Road would henceforth increasingly come via the Indian and Atlantic oceans thus disintermediating those terrestrial caravanserais that had previously grown rich on that through traffic. The British and Dutch East Indies companies would, by cutting out Venetian and other middlemen, become the Amazon of their age . . . except that, unlike Amazon, they would become vastly profitable too!

達(dá)伽馬在1498年取得的歷史性突破，是當(dāng)時的亞洲商品集散地威尼斯衰落的開始：從那以后，利潤豐厚的歐亞陸上絲綢之路貿(mào)易日益讓位于經(jīng)由印度洋和大西洋的海上貿(mào)易，那些早先靠陸路貿(mào)易帶來的客流而變得富裕的陸上商隊驛站城市，喪失了中間商的地位。英、荷東印度公司通過擠掉威尼斯人和其他中間商，成為它們那個時代的亞馬遜(Amazon)……與亞馬遜不一樣的是，它們后來也賺取了暴利!

In passing, it is worth noting that so great was the profit that the Indies produced for the British and the Dutch, it was to cement the institutional cornerstones of modern capitalism: joint stock companies, limited liability and stock exchanges.

順便說一句，有必要指出，東印度為英國和荷蘭人創(chuàng)造了如此豐厚的利潤，以致于它鞏固了成為現(xiàn)代資本主義基石的幾種制度：股份公司、有限責(zé)任公司和股票交易所。

More than 500 years later, at the dawn of the third millennium, the promise of the Indies may again be about to be realised.

500多年后，在第三個千年的開端，東印度所蘊(yùn)含的希望可能再次即將獲得實現(xiàn)。

While China’s gross domestic product today is still growing at an extraordinarily fast 6 per cent plus per annum — notable because as the world’s second-largest economy there can now be no dismissing its efforts because they are “off a low base” — there is another growth story that is emerging behind or rather beneath China. Largely but not wholly based in countries either in or around the Indian Ocean, the Three Indies region will most probably be the leading growth engine for the global economy through 2050.

在中國國內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值(GDP)仍在以每年6%以上的驚人速度快速增長——因為中國已經(jīng)是全球第二大經(jīng)濟(jì)體，“起點(diǎn)已經(jīng)不低了”，這樣的速度是令人矚目和不容忽視的——的同時，還有一個增長故事正跟在中國后面或者說在中國以南浮現(xiàn)出來。從現(xiàn)在到2050年，基本上但并非全部位于印度洋周邊國家的三印度(Three Indies)地區(qū)，最有可能成為全球經(jīng)濟(jì)的主要增長引擎。

This is an almost mechanical prediction: this region’s rise will be all but guaranteed by the monsoon winds of favourable demographics and productivity growth. Combined, these two essential strands of the DNA of economic growth will drive the Three Indies region forward.

這幾乎是一種機(jī)械預(yù)測：得益于有利的人口條件和生產(chǎn)率增長，該地區(qū)的興起是十拿九穩(wěn)的。這兩個經(jīng)濟(jì)增長的基本DNA將共同推動三印度地區(qū)前行。

Who then makes up this new growth engine? It has three flywheels: Indochina, the modern-day East Indies and the Indian subcontinent. Indochina embraces Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Malaysia. The East Indies takes in the archipelagos of Indonesia and the Philippines with Timor Leste, Brunei with arguably the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak also members. The Indian subcontinent covers India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Nepal. And, at its geographic heart, Singapore can already claim to be this region’s entrepôt.

這個新全球增長引擎由哪些部分組成?它有3個飛輪：中南半島(Indochina，又名印度支那)、現(xiàn)代東印度群島和印度次大陸。中南半島包括越南、老撾、柬埔寨、泰國、緬甸和馬來西亞。東印度群島包括印尼群島和菲律賓，以及東帝汶和文萊，可以說還有馬來西亞的沙巴(Sabah)和沙撈越(Sarawak)。印度次大陸包括印度、巴基斯坦、孟加拉國、斯里蘭卡、馬爾代夫和尼泊爾。位于該地區(qū)中心位置的新加坡已經(jīng)可以宣稱是該地區(qū)的貿(mào)易樞紐。

The three regions have 2.4bn people, almost a third of the world’s population: Indochina, 270m; the Indies, 375m and the Indian subcontinent, 1750m. It comprises seven of the world’s top 20 most populous nations including — by 2025 — its most populous: India.

這3個地區(qū)有24億人口，幾乎占到全球人口的三分之一：中南半島有2.7億人，東印度群島有3.75億人，而印度次大陸有17.5億人口。它包括全球20個人口最多國家中的7個，其中就有到2025年將會成為全球人口最多國家的印度。

The inbuilt human advantage that this region possesses is that almost all its vast pool of labour is both low-cost in US dollars per hour wage terms and contains within it a large number of semi-skilled and skilled workers. It also makes up more than half of the world’s young people. This explains why the countries winning in the latest lap of the Great Race to secure new factory locations are the likes of Vietnam, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “make in India” initiative has now added India to this list of favoured manufacturing bases.

該地區(qū)擁有的內(nèi)在人口優(yōu)勢是，幾乎所有的勞動力人口不僅按美元時薪計算是低成本的，而且其中還有大量的半熟練和熟練工人。它還擁有世界上逾一半的年輕人。這解釋了為何在爭奪新工廠落戶的這場“大賽”(Great Race)中，最新一輪獲勝的都是越南、印尼和孟加拉國這類國家。印度總理納倫德拉•莫迪(Narendra Modi)提出的“印度制造”倡議，讓印度如今也登上了熱門制造業(yè)基地的名單。

One recent economic theory seeking to explain the mysteries of economic growth has been put forward by the Observatory of Economic Complexity at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their Complexity Atlas unequivocally highlights the Indian Ocean basin as being the hottest spot on the planet in terms of where economic growth is likely to be highest in the foreseeable future. Anchoring and leading this prediction — as its does the whole region — is India whose GDP growth is forecast to average 7 per cent per annum in the decade to 2020.

麻省理工學(xué)院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)的經(jīng)濟(jì)復(fù)雜性觀測組織(Observatory of Economic Complexity)最近提出了一個尋求解釋經(jīng)濟(jì)增長之謎的經(jīng)濟(jì)理論。他們編制的《經(jīng)濟(jì)復(fù)雜性地圖冊》(The Atlas of Economic Complexity)將印度洋海盆明確標(biāo)記為在可預(yù)見的未來經(jīng)濟(jì)最有可能增長最快的地區(qū)。支撐并引領(lǐng)這種預(yù)測的是印度，預(yù)計后者在截至2020年的十年里的GDP年均增速將為7%。

Confirmation of this prediction comes from the corporate think-tank, the Conference Board: they also see the Indian Ocean basin as the region likely to register the highest productivity growth in the next decade.

確認(rèn)該預(yù)測的是企業(yè)智庫機(jī)構(gòu)世界大型企業(yè)研究會(The Conference Board)：他們還把印度洋海盆視為未來10年可能錄得最高生產(chǎn)率增長的地區(qū)。

The Chinese, known for an ability to make historical insights relevant to the modern era, have, in acknowledging these forecasts, revived the ancient concept of the terrestrial and maritime Silk Roads that connected Asia’s east to Europe. In doing so, they aim to capitalise on re-emerging trade links via their One Belt, One Road initiative: this involves extensive investment by them in the transport infrastructure of Eurasia’s “belt” and the Indian Ocean’s “road”. Echoing the logic of British railway building from China to Chile and India to Canada in the late 1800s, Chinese geo-strategists must surely be anticipating that, before long, as was the case for Marco Polo during the 13th century, many roads will again lead to Beijing.

因以史為鑒能力而聞名的中國人，認(rèn)可了這些預(yù)測，重新啟動了古時連接亞洲東部和歐洲的陸上和海上絲綢之路的概念。他們這樣做的目的，是通過他們的“一帶一路”(One Belt, One Road)倡議來利用重新興起的貿(mào)易聯(lián)系。這一倡議涉及到在歐亞“絲綢之路經(jīng)濟(jì)帶”和印度洋“海上絲綢之路”大規(guī)模投資交通基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施。這與十九世紀(jì)末英國在從中國到智利、從印度到加拿大的世界各地興建鐵路的邏輯一致，中國的地緣政治戰(zhàn)略家必定認(rèn)為，用不了多久，條條大路就會再次通北京，就像13世紀(jì)馬可•波羅看到的情景一樣。

The Three Indies region has a number of other commercial advantages. Many of its nations are familiar with the world’s business language, English, with a good number also having their legal systems rooted in English law. It is home to a number of very entrepreneurial communities: for example the Hadhramis, Ishmailis, Gujaratis and Huaqiao. The region will be a huge beneficiary of the coming renewable energy revolution as it taps both its solar and wind resources as well as exploiting the second stage of that revolution: desalination. It is the most politically neutral of the three Great Ocean regions: while it houses outposts of former European empires, the Indian Ocean has no permanent member of the UN Security Council on its shores. And it has tech savvy India at its heart.

三印度地區(qū)還有很多其他商業(yè)優(yōu)勢。該地區(qū)很多國家都熟練地使用全世界經(jīng)商的通用語言——英語，還有很多國家的法律體系都跟源于英國法。這里生活著很多非常富有企業(yè)家精神的族群：比如哈德拉毛人(Hadhrami)、伊斯瑪儀派(Ismaili)、古吉拉特人(Gujaratis)和華僑。該地區(qū)將利用太陽能和風(fēng)能資源，從而大大受益于即將到來的可再生能源革命，同時也將探索這場革命的第二個階段：利用可再生能源進(jìn)行海水淡化。在三個大洋(Great Ocean)沿岸地區(qū)中，印度洋沿岸地區(qū)是政治上最為中立的：盡管這里曾經(jīng)是一些前歐洲帝國的前哨，但印度洋沿岸地區(qū)沒有任何一個國家是聯(lián)合國安理會(UN Security Council)常任理事國。而且精通科技的印度就在該地區(qū)的中心。

In due course, there are other nations adjacent to this region, especially those in eastern Africa, Australia and perhaps even in a post-oil Middle East, that will be drawn into the gravitational pull of this new dynamo. Indeed, some such as Kenya and Ethiopia are already feeling its pull.

在適當(dāng)?shù)臅r候，將會有其他毗鄰該地區(qū)的國家——特別是東非的幾個國家、澳大利亞、甚至可能包括后石油時代的中東國家——被這個新引擎的引力捕獲。的確，肯尼亞和埃塞俄比亞等一些國家已經(jīng)感受到了它的引力。

When, in 1498, Vasco da Gama reached his first Asian port at Calicut in India, he was surprised to find he was in the midst the most prosperous trading basin on earth. Since then, the global economy has seen its oceanic centre of economic gravity move first to the Atlantic and increasingly now to the Pacific. By 2050, the Indian Ocean basin — centred on the Three Indies region — could be well on its way to reviving much of its former commercial glory.

1498年，當(dāng)瓦斯科•達(dá)伽馬第一次抵達(dá)亞洲港口、印度的卡利卡特時，他驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)自己正置身于地球上最繁忙的貿(mào)易港中。從那之后，全球經(jīng)濟(jì)引力的大洋中心先是轉(zhuǎn)向大西洋、如今正逐漸轉(zhuǎn)向太平洋。到2050年，以三印度地區(qū)為中心的印度洋海盆很可能早已開始再現(xiàn)過去的商業(yè)輝煌了。

Michael Power is strategist at Investec Asset Management

本文作者為天達(dá)資產(chǎn)管理公司(Investec Asset Management)的策略師