油价瓦解全球化
发布时间：2008-06-11 13:05
分类名称：默认分类
分类名称：默认分类
Oil price crisis threatens to reverse globalisation Carl Mortished: World Business BriefingWith brutal efficiency, the oil price is beginning to duff up a monster of the 20th century: globalisation. Those great tentacles that gripped our world in a hideous embrace are suddenly weakening and the multinational octopus is looking a bit pale and sickly. The extraordinary rise in the price of crude oil is wrecking outsourced business models everywhere and distance from your customer is no longer merely a matter of dull logistics. Whether you are selling coiled steel or cut flowers, the cost of transport is a problem.
America's steel industry is enjoying an unexpected revival, its competitive edge sharpened by the tariff wall erected by the cost of shipping heavy, low added-value products across the Pacific. We hear fewer complaints from Americans about Asian steel-dumping; instead, it is Asian exporters who are feeling the pinch and the pressure is from inputs as well as shipping to customers.
China needs to import iron ore and coking coal, but the cost of shipping a tonne of ore from Brazil to China now exceeds $100, a cost that is equal to the value of the mineral itself. The oil overhead for passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific is proving to be a powerful bargaining chip in negotiations between some Australian iron ore mining companies and their Chinese steel mill customers. Antipodean miners are holding out for a higher price, arguing that some of the benefit of lower carriage costs belongs to producers. Proximity is suddenly more profitable and local solutions begin to look less like the expensive option. It would be rash to predict a revival of the Yorkshire textile mill and the demise of the Guangdong sweatshop, but you have to ask whether it makes sense to ship stuff from China when the price of a sea voyage from Shanghai represents half of the value of the product.
The economics of long-distance supply chains are being rewritten; if it is small and expensive - drugs and sophisticated electronics, for example - fuel costs have little impact, but bulky goods are under the cosh. Furniture, footwear, basic machinery, building materials - this is the stuff that China exports in vast quantities to America and it was very cheap, until now.
Economists at CIBC World Markets reckon that globalisation might go into reverse if the escalation in fuel costs continues. The freight cost of importing goods into America represented an effective tariff of 3 per cent when the oil price was $20 per barrel in 2000; it is now more than 9 per cent and will rise to 11 per cent if oil hits $150, CIBC says.
The revenge of localisation will be good for some but not for others and, just as globalisation had its victims, so will the gradual retreat by big business from the air and the high seas.
America's steel industry is enjoying an unexpected revival, its competitive edge sharpened by the tariff wall erected by the cost of shipping heavy, low added-value products across the Pacific. We hear fewer complaints from Americans about Asian steel-dumping; instead, it is Asian exporters who are feeling the pinch and the pressure is from inputs as well as shipping to customers.
China needs to import iron ore and coking coal, but the cost of shipping a tonne of ore from Brazil to China now exceeds $100, a cost that is equal to the value of the mineral itself. The oil overhead for passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific is proving to be a powerful bargaining chip in negotiations between some Australian iron ore mining companies and their Chinese steel mill customers. Antipodean miners are holding out for a higher price, arguing that some of the benefit of lower carriage costs belongs to producers. Proximity is suddenly more profitable and local solutions begin to look less like the expensive option. It would be rash to predict a revival of the Yorkshire textile mill and the demise of the Guangdong sweatshop, but you have to ask whether it makes sense to ship stuff from China when the price of a sea voyage from Shanghai represents half of the value of the product.
The economics of long-distance supply chains are being rewritten; if it is small and expensive - drugs and sophisticated electronics, for example - fuel costs have little impact, but bulky goods are under the cosh. Furniture, footwear, basic machinery, building materials - this is the stuff that China exports in vast quantities to America and it was very cheap, until now.
Economists at CIBC World Markets reckon that globalisation might go into reverse if the escalation in fuel costs continues. The freight cost of importing goods into America represented an effective tariff of 3 per cent when the oil price was $20 per barrel in 2000; it is now more than 9 per cent and will rise to 11 per cent if oil hits $150, CIBC says.
The revenge of localisation will be good for some but not for others and, just as globalisation had its victims, so will the gradual retreat by big business from the air and the high seas.
