国际贸易案例 斯里兰卡

CASE STUDY：SRI LANKA TRADESri Lanka, which means resplendent land, is an island country of more than 16 million people off the southeast coast of India. Lying just above the equator, it is 270 miles long and 140 miles across at its widest points (see Map 4.1).It has a hot tropical climate with two monsoon periods, yet the central mountain region is cool enough to experience frost. Known as Ceylon from the early sixteenth century until 1972, Sri Lanka is in many ways typical of most developing countries. It has a low per capita income (about $420 per year), a high dependence on a few primary products for earning foreign exchange, insufficient foreign exchange earnings to purchase all of the desired consumer and industrial imports, and a high unemployment rate. In many other ways, though, Sri Lanka is atypical of developing nations. By various measurements comparing the quality of life among countries, Sri Lanka ranks fairly high. Its 87 percent literacy rate is one of the highest in Asia, and its standards of nutrition, health care, and income distribution are among the highest in the Third World. Its life expectancy of 71 years is one of the highest in the developing world, and its recent population growth rate of 1.5 percent per year is one of the lowest. （①斯里兰卡在经济上的问题是什么？）Although Sri Lanka did not become independent until 1948, it has a long recorded history of international trade. By the middle of the third century B.C., special quarters of its capital were set apart for "Ionian merchants.'' King Solomon sent his galleys to Sri Lanka to purchase gems, elephants, and peacocks to woo the Queen of Sheba. Sinbad and Marco Polo sailed there. Sri Lanka sent ambassadors to Claudius Caesar in the Roman Empire and later established trade links with China. One by one the European powers came to dominate the island in order to acquire products unavailable in their own countries. The Portuguese, for example, sought such products as cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom, and the English developed the island's economy with tea, rubber, and coconuts, replacing rice as the major agricultural crop. （②在英国的统治下斯里兰卡的经济主要依靠哪几种产品？）Since its independence, Sri Lanka has looked to international trade policy as a means of helping to solve such problems as (1) foreign exchange shortage, (2) over-dependence on one product and one market, and (3) insufficient growth of output and employment. （③独立后，斯里兰卡制定国际贸易政策主要是为了解决哪些问题？）Foreign exchange is needed for buying imports. Advances in international communications and transportation have contributed to rising Sri Lankan expectations, which in turn have translated into preferences for foreign products or for foreign machinery to produce them. These desires have grown more rapidly than foreign exchange earnings have.Sri Lanka also has been concerned about its overdependence on a single export product and market. Until 1975 more than half of Sri Lanka's export earnings were from tea. This made Sri Lanka vulnerable in two ways. First, world demand for tea has not grown as rapidly as that for many other products, particularly manufactured ones. Therefore, tea has not offered as viable a means of increasing economic growth, employment, or foreign exchange earnings as some other products. Second, tea prices can fluctuate substantially because of bumper crops or natural disasters in any tea-exporting country. For example, the wholesale price of tea has changed by as much as 90 percent from one year to the next. This makes planning for long-term business or government projects very difficult. Because Sri Lanka is a former British colony, many Sri Lankans also have been concerned that the country cannot be politically and economically independent as long as trade is so centered on the British market. At the time of independence, for example, one third of Sri Lankan exports went to the United Kingdom. Sri Lanka was thus potentially vulnerable to British political demands and economic downturns. （④过分依赖一种产品、一个市场给斯里兰卡带来了什么问题？）Because of these varied but interrelated problems Sri Lanka has attempted since independence to earn more foreign exchange by exporting more of its traditional commodities. In addition, Sri Lanka has sought to diversify its production. From independence in 1948 until 1960, Sri Lanka made little attempt to change its export dependence on tea, rubber, and coconuts to pay for imported food and industrial goods. From 1960 until a change of government in 1977, the emphasis was on the restriction of imports in order to encourage local production, which would thus save foreign exchange. Since then the focus has been on the development of new industries that can export a part of their production and thus earn more foreign exchange. Whether the diversification has been for import substitution or export development, the intended outcome has been to create growth and jobs by using unemployed people and other unemployed resources. By moving to new products, the country expects to be less dependent on the tea market and on sales of that product into the traditional British market. （⑤从1960年到1977年，斯里兰卡决定采取什么样的国际贸易政策？）The decision to develop exports of nontraditional products raises the questions of what those products should be and how to get firms to produce them for foreign markets. In 1977 the newly elected government in Sri Lanka was determined that assistance should be given only to those industries that would give Sri Lanka the best potential advantage in world markets. The government took numerous steps to ease restrictions on imports in order to judge where competitive advantages lay. Authorities reasoned that the industries that could survive import competition were the most likely to become competitive in export markets.Governmental authorities were not satisfied to sit back and wait for imports to determine the whole future industrial thrust, however. They felt that some entirely new industries might have to be assisted. Additionally, there was a desire to make some short-term export gains in order to develop credibility for the export development program. The export development division of the Ministry of Industries was instrumental in creating a methodology to identify appropriate products for development and promotion.An obvious way of selecting product groups was to identify nontraditional products that were already being exported in small amounts, since this ability to export indicated potential growth. The export development division also sought to find other products for which Sri Lanka might have a potential advantage in competing abroad. They first identified products that would have a high need for semiskilled and skilled labor because: (1) labor costs in Sri Lanka were low, (2) the labor force was fairly well educated, and (3) unemployment and underemployment were high. The division narrowed that group of products to include only those for which Sri Lanka hadindigenous raw materials for production and packaging. This was deemed to be an important competitive indicator because it would be costly to import materials that would then have to be processed before being reexported. Finally, the division examined market conditions where Sri Lanka was most apt to be able to sell. This examination was based on an analysis of demand in two types of markets: (1) those where Sri Lanka had special market concessions and therefore would experience minimal trade barriers and (2) those that were geographically close to Sri Lanka and could be served with minimum transport costs.（⑥1977年后，斯里兰卡政府采取了哪三种办法来辨别需要给予支持的产业？采取了哪些标准来辨别适合出口的市场？）Seventeen products emerged and were ranked by export potential and expected benefits for the country. The leading items were:processed tea (packaged teabags and instant tea)ready-made garments (shirts, pajamas, and dresses)chemical derivatives of coconut oiledible fatsbicycle tires and tubesother rubber products such as automobile tires and tubesOther items included canvas footwear, passionfruit juice, canned pineapple, ceramic ware, seafood (lobsters and shrimp), handicraft items, and gems.(⑦斯里兰卡政府辨别出来的17种产品有什么特征？)This identification of the most likely competitive industries encouraged some businesspeople to consider investments in new areas. Additionally, the government established industrial development zones. Companies that produced in and exported their production from the zones could qualify for up to a 10-year tax holiday plus another 15 years of tax concessions, depending on the size of the investment and the number of employees. They could also bring in goods and components without paying import taxes on them at the time of import. The import tax was deferred until the ensuing products were sold domestically. If the items were reexported, there was no import tax.（⑧斯里兰卡政府采取了哪些措施来鼓励商人投资于这些产业？）The first manufacturers to take advantage of the incentives were textile and footwear producers who had special access to the U.S. and European markets. Since then the products have become more diverse. Such operations as the production of PVC film, carpets, and data entry have been approved.Sri Lanka continues to have a shortage of foreign exchange. As imports have entered SriLanka more easily and as incomes have risen, consumers have demanded even more foreign products. As a result, Sri Lanka has restricted large consumer items but has allowed smaller items, such as watches, to enter freely because of a belief that they would otherwise be smuggled in.The move to establish new export industries is accomplishing many of its objectives. Manufacturing has grown as a portion of total exports and tea has fallen. There has also been a dispersion of Sri Lankan export markets, with such countries as the United States, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and India gaining in importance. Whereas one third of exports once went to Britain, no single country now accounts for as much as 15 percent of Sri Lankan sales.（⑨采取这些政策后，斯里兰卡取得了哪些成绩？还存在什么问题？为什么会存在这些问题？）。