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Chinese flu
中国感冒了
In the early 2000s, as steel demand in the developed world began to slow, China’s appetite for grand construction projects acted as a ballast for the industry. When the financial crisis hit in 2008, Beijing chose to build its way out of a recession. Cities sprang up across the country, each new apartment block packed with bars of reinforcing steel. China’s consumption of the metal more than doubled in the decade to 2014 to 740m tonnes, while production rose in parallel to account for nearly half the world’s annual output of 1.67bn tonnes.
21世纪初，随着发达世界对钢铁的需求开始放缓，中国对大型建设项目的兴趣成为了这个行业的压舱石。2008年金融危机爆发后，北京方面选择了借助基础设施建设避免陷入衰退的出路。一座座城市在中国各地拔地而起，每一栋新建公寓大楼都需要不少螺纹钢。在截至2014年的十年里，中国的钢铁消费量增加了1倍多，至7.4亿吨，而产量也随之上升，增至世界年产量（16.7亿吨）的近一半。
But that engine is sputtering. For the first time in three decades, Chinese steel output shrank last year to 875m tonnes as building activity cooled, signalling what many see as the end of an era as Beijing enters a “new normal” of slower, but higher-quality growth.
但中国这台引擎正在失去动力。随着建筑活动降温，去年中国的钢铁产量出现30年来首次萎缩，降至8.75亿吨。在很多人看来，这标志着一个时代的结束，北京步入了增长更慢、但更有质量的“新常态”。
Over half of China’s major producers were lossmaking in 2015, but rather than close or go bankrupt, these companies, the majority of which are state owned, continue to churn out more metal than the nation needs. Last year alone, China’s exports soared by a fifth to 112m tonnes — greater than the total output of Japan, the world’s second-biggest steel producing nation.
2015年，中国逾半大型钢铁生产商陷入亏损，其中多数为国家所有，这些公司非但没有关闭或者破产，反而继续大量生产超出国内需求的钢材。仅去年一年，中国钢铁出口飙升五分之一，至1.12亿吨——比世界第二大钢铁生产国日本的总产量还要多。
As global steel prices collapsed, bitter complaints were made against China over dumping material below the costs of production, as well as accusations that it subsidises lossmaking and debt-addled zombie companies.
随着全球钢铁价格暴跌，不仅出现了针对中国以低于生产成本的价格倾销钢材的抱怨，还有对中国补贴亏损和债务混乱的僵尸企业的指控。
In Europe, steel demand is 25 per cent lower than before the 2008 financial crisis. Despite painful closures and the loss of one in five steel jobs, some analysts say the continent still has excess capacity. When plants are underused, operators lose their ability to set prices and unit costs go up.
在欧洲，钢铁需求比2008年金融危机前低25%。尽管欧洲大陆经历了痛苦的钢厂倒闭，失去了五分之一的钢铁业相关工作岗位，但一些分析师表示，欧洲的钢铁产能依然过剩。当钢厂开工率不足时，运营商失去定价能力，单位成本会上升。
Alessandro Abate, analyst at Berenberg, says: “The future of [European] steel lies in consolidation. If they don’t do it now they should stop complaining about Chinese overcapacity. They need to lower costs and distribute the workload across the most efficient assets.”
贝伦贝格(Berenberg)的分析师亚历山德罗•阿巴特(Alessandro Abate)说：“（欧洲）钢铁的未来在于整合。如果它们现在不这样做，它们就不应该再抱怨中国的产能过剩。它们需要降低成本，并且将业务量分配到效率最高的资产上。”
Specialist turn
转型特种钢材
But closing unneeded steel factories is no easy task, not only because of the large costs of redundancy payouts and cleaning up contaminated land. Emasculating an industry that is a symbol of national strength can spark fierce political opposition.
但是，关闭不需要的钢铁厂并非易事，这不仅仅是因为裁员补偿和清理受污染土地的巨大成本。削弱一个象征着综合国力的行业，可能会招致激烈的政治反对。
In the likely event that equilibrium is not restored soon, steelmakers — particularly those in developed countries — face an existential question: who can survive — and how?
鉴于均衡状态很可能不会很快恢复，钢铁生产商，尤其是发达国家的那些钢铁生产商，面临一个生死存亡的问题：谁能生存？要怎么做才能生存？
“In my opinion, the only solution if you want to survive is to focus on high-quality and high-tech steel products. This sounds very simple but it’s in fact very complicated,” says Wolfgang Eder, chief executive of Voestalpine, an Austria-based producer.
“在我看来，如果你想生存下来，唯一的解决办法是专注于高品质和高技术含量的钢材产品。这听起来很简单，但实际上非常复杂，”奥地利钢铁生产商奥钢联集团(Voestalpine)首席执行官沃尔夫冈•埃德(Wolfgang Eder)说。
Since emerging from bankruptcy in the 1980s, Voestalpine has become a paragon of premium steelmaking. While rivals bulked up to gain economies of scale, seen in the creation of Corus in 1999 through the combination of British Steel and Hoogovens of the Netherlands, or the merger of Arcelor and Mittal Steel seven years later, it followed a different tack. It concentrated on downstream, or processing, facilities and added engineering capabilities.
上世纪80年代脱离破产保护之后，奥钢联变成了高端炼钢的典范。竞争对手纷纷扩大生产以实现规模效益，比如1999年英国钢铁(British Steel)和荷兰的Hoogovens合并为哥鲁氏(Corus)，以及7年后安赛乐(Arcelor)和米塔尔钢铁(Mittal Steel)合并，而奥钢联采取了不同的策略，专注于下游业务，即加工、设施以及附加工程设计能力。
By the turn of the millennium, the company had withdrawn from all commodity steelmaking, says Mr Eder. Today it sells not a single tonne on the spot market. An example of its approach is in railways. As well as tracks, Voestalpine manufactures specialist components such as switches and applications for high-speed rail, in addition to signalling, safety features and offering maintenance.
埃德说，到世纪之交的时候，这家公司已经退出所有普通的炼钢业务。今天，奥钢联在现货市场上连一吨钢铁都不卖。体现该公司策略的一个例子是铁路。除了钢轨外，奥钢联还生产高速铁路的专用组件（如道岔系统）和配套应用，以及信号和安全系统，并提供维护。
