香港上市公用事业企业中电控股(CLP Holdings)在印度哈里亚纳邦（Haryana，毗邻德里）新建的一家燃煤发电厂即将竣工。
无论是在印度还是在中国内地，中电都是当地发电项目的最大境外投资者。
由于中电并不是一家总部位于中国内地的企业，因此，它到底会在世界哪个角落为其电厂找到最好的设备，答案应该是不确定的。但迄今为止，无论中电在哪里建厂——印度、东南亚或更远的地区——其旗下价值逾10亿美元的电厂所安装的发电设备，却都采购自中国内地。换言之，在中国制造商沿增值链攀升的过程中，发电设备已成为它们攻陷的又一个堡垒。
中国发电设备在印度市场上取得的成功，提醒人们注意中印两国经济实力的对比情况。由于信贷需求直线下降、工业产出数据令人失望、零售额增长放缓，中国上周下调了利率，此举似乎表明中国的经济增长正在显著放慢。
可中电的例子说明，人们对中国的情况可能担忧过度了。尽管中国出口额仍起伏较大、且成本上升迫使出口型企业迁往海外成本更低的生产基地，但该国在生产涡轮机等价值和复杂程度较高的设备方面仍具备优势。
但印度应该没有被甩得太远，因为过去两年印度在提升出口实力方面取得的进步比大家普遍认为的大得多。
印度出口增速高于国内生产总值(GDP)增速，出口占经济总量的25%，抚养比率(dependency ratio)高于中国。而且如摩根大通(JPMorgan)经济学家贾汉吉尔•阿齐兹(Jahangir Aziz)所述，印度改观最大的领域不是服务业、而是制成品。
印度商品出口的构成也发生了改变，在汽车、汽车零部件和资本品等工程化产品上进步最大，说明该国工程技术人才实力雄厚。
同时，汇率走向也大大地提高了印度出口的竞争力，起码在理论上讲是这样。自去年8月印度卢比开始贬值以来，其相对人民币已累计贬值了27%。
此时此刻，印度比以往更需要出口收入，因为目前占GDP 10.2%的经常账户赤字开始让印度吃不消了。
不过，中电的例子表明，中国在具有附加值的重工业领域遥遥领先于印度，后者可能永远也赶不上来。
中电控股行政总裁包立贤(Andrew Brandler)表示，这个例子说明了一件众所周知的事情：中国通过“在需求出现之前先行投资”，成功地使其基础设施发挥出了合力。不仅如此，这个例子还让人们看到，中国已利用其庞大国内市场产生的规模经济优势，造就出世界级的发电设备制造商，并推动这些企业向海外扩张。
中国三大发电设备生产商东方电气(Dongfang Electric)、哈尔滨电气(Harbin Electric)和上海电气(Shanghai Electric)，能以接近印度或国际生产商一半的价格，向上述哈里亚纳邦发电厂提供发电设备，即便是把运输和进口关税成本计算在内也能给出这样的价格。此外，当中国企业竞标供货合同时，它们是以固定价格报价，而印度企业竞标时报出的却是成本加成价格，使潜在客户不得不面对讨厌的不确定性。
速度也是一个因素。中国企业能在36个月的时间内向装机容量为1320兆瓦的庞然大物——哈里亚纳邦燃煤发电厂——交付涡轮机，而印度企业需要60个月才能交货。
包立贤相信，国际企业要想与中国一争高下，唯一途径就是复制中国的规模经济优势。这正是二十余年前的松下电器(Matsushita)在消费电子产品领域得出的结论。当时，中国刚刚开始生产微波炉等产品，其品质几乎同松下在日本生产的产品一样好，但价格却要低得多。
当然，中国模式的核心就是至少要对市场力量进行一定的压制。向中国企业订购设备的部分吸引力在于，下订单时可以获得补贴性融资。
但是，印度也不是纯粹的自由市场。事实上，印度实施的半拉子改革（私人部门一直在与之斗争）构成了很多障碍，外国投资者不得不要求更高的回报率以补偿要面对的风险。
同时，印度的资金成本也在持续上升。企业把资金存入印度的银行便可赚取9%的利息，这正是投资水平可能会继续下降的一个原因。这与刚刚减息的中国形成了对比，而且这种对比越来越强烈。
本文作者是英国《金融时报》首席国际金融记者
译者/邢嵬
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001045066
CLP Holdings, the Hong Kong-based utility, has almost completed a new coal-fired power plant in Haryana, the Indian state neighbouring Delhi.
In India, as in China, CLP is the largest foreign investor in power projects.
Because CLP is not based on the Chinese mainland, it is agnostic when it scours the world in search of the best equipment for its plants. Yet today, wherever CLP builds, whether in India, south-east Asia or further afield, the power-generation equipment it installs in its $1bn-plus plants comes from the mainland. In other words, power equipment has become yet another manufacturing citadel that Chinese makers have stormed in their move up the value-added chain.
The success of Chinese power equipment in the Indian market offers a cautionary tale of the relative strengths of both economies. The interest rate cut in China last week – amid plummeting demand for credit, disappointing industrial production numbers and a slowing rate of increase in retail sales – suggests that Chinese growth is slowing sharply.
Yet the example of CLP suggests that fears about China may be overdone. Even while Chinese export volumes remain uneven and rising costs force exporters to move to cheaper production sites offshore, China retains an advantage in making costlier, more complicated equipment such as turbines.
However, India should not lag so far behind, as it has improved its exporting might for the past two years far more than generally recognised.
Exports have grown faster than gross domestic product and account for 25 per cent of its economy, a higher dependency ratio than China’s. Moreover, the greatest improvement has not been in services but in manufactured goods, as Jahangir Aziz, an economist with JPMorgan, notes.
The composition of its merchandise exports has also shifted, with the biggest improvement in engineered goods – cars, car parts, capital goods – reflecting India’s depth of engineering talent.
And currency moves have given the country a big boost in competitiveness, at least theoretically. Since August, when the slide in the rupee began, the Indian currency has depreciated 27 per cent against the renminbi.
All this comes at a time when India needs export revenues more than ever, in the face of a current account deficit that, at 10.2 per cent of GDP, is becoming unsustainable.
Yet the CLP case shows that China is so far ahead in value-added heavy manufacturing that India may never come close to closing the gap.
It is not only the well-known tale of how China managed to put its own infrastructure act together by “pre-investing well ahead of demand”, as Andrew Brandler, CLP chief executive, says. It is that China has taken advantage of the large economies of scale that stem from its big domestic market to build world-class power equipment makers and take them to the rest of the region.
Dongfang, Harbin Electric and Shanghai Electric, China’s three big makers, can provide equipment to the Haryana plant at almost half the price of either Indian or international manufacturers, even taking into account the cost of transportation and any tariffs on imports. Moreover, when the Chinese bid for supply contracts, they offer fixed prices, whereas Indian groups offer quotes on a cost-plus basis, leaving their potential customers with the kind of uncertainty they hate.
Speed is also a factor. The Chinese can deliver the turbines for the Haryana plant, a 1,320MW behemoth, in 36 months, whereas the Indians will take 60 months.
Mr Brandler believes the only way that any international group can compete is to replicate the Chinese economies of scale. That is exactly what Matsushita concluded in consumer electronics a generation ago. This was when China first started to produce items such as microwave ovens, which were almost as good quality as those Matsushita made in Japan but far cheaper.
Of course, the Chinese model is all about at least a partial suppression of market forces. Part of the attraction of ordering equipment from China is the subsidised financing that comes with those orders.
But India isn’t exactly a free market. Indeed, the partial reforms of India, which the private sector is constantly coming up against, represent an obstacle course that forces foreign investors to demand a higher rate of return to compensate for the risk.
Meanwhile, the cost of capital in India continues to rise. Companies can earn 9 per cent on their deposits in Indian banks – one reason investment is likely to continue to drop. The contrast with China, which just lowered rates, gets starker by the day.
Henny Sender is the FT’s chief international finance correspondent
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