China’s emergence¹ as the world’s workshop over the past two decades has rested in large part on its small manufacturing towns, where hundreds or in some cases thousands of factories specialise in one type of product, underpinned² by a steady supply of cheap migrant labour.

中国在过去20年崛起为世界工厂在很大程度上有赖于其小型制造业城镇，在这些城镇有数百家、甚至数千家专门生产某种产品的工厂，同时源源不断的廉价农民工也为这些工厂提供了支持。

However, such small factories are facing significant stress as they struggle to remain competitive amid slowing demand, rising labour costs and a glut³ of capacity.

然而，此类小工厂现在面临着巨大的压力，因为随着需求放缓、劳动力成本日益上升和产能过剩，它们很难保持竞争力。

Their distress⁴ is underscored by a recent survey of 48 owners of small and medium sized factories - defined as those with 20 to 2,000 employees and annual revenues of Rmb20m to Rmb400m ($3.2m to $64.4m) - in 13 towns nationwide by FT Confidential⁵ Research, a research service from the Financial Times.

英国《金融时报》旗下研究服务部门“投资参考”(FT Confidential Research)最近对中国13个城镇的48位中小工厂企业主展开调查，揭露出这些工厂面临的压力。中小规模的工厂指的是员工人数在20至2000人，年收入在2000万元人民币至4亿元人民币（320万美元至6440万美元）的工厂。

More than half of them - 55.6 per cent - reported zero or negative revenue growth in the first quarter of this year. Profit growth also stalled, with just 42.2 per cent seeing an increase in net income.

其中一半以上（55.6%）的工厂企业主表示他们今年第一季度收入没有增长或者出现下滑。利润增长也出现停滞，只有42.2%的企业主表示净收入增长。

This has made overhauling⁶ their businesses a top priority for the owners, as they struggle to stay afloat in an increasingly competitive environment.

这使得工厂企业主们将调整业务作为重中之重，因为他们很难在一个竞争日益激烈的环境中维持运营。

Three quarters of them - 77.8 per cent - had branched into new areas of business over the past two years. While some factories are moving downstream or upstream within their own industries, others are moving into brand new territory. Nearly a third - 28.9 per cent - had invested in new areas outside their core business; another 4.4 per cent had exited their old businesses altogether to focus on new industries.

四分之三的受访者（77.8%）在过去两年里进入了新的业务领域。尽管一些工厂将业务延伸至本行业的上下游，但其他工厂则进入了全新的领域。近三分之一的受访者（28.9%）投资于其核心业务以外的新领域，还有4.4%的受访者完全退出过去的业务，转向新的行业。

Others are overhauling their sales models or investing in automation in a bid to boost productivity.

其他受访者则在调整销售模式，或者投资于自动化以提升生产率。

However, a combination of skills shortages, high borrowing costs and poor intellectual property protection are making these transitions difficult. Weak IP protection was the number one factor hindering innovation, cited by 40.5 per cent of factory owners, ahead of access to credit and a shortage of skilled labour (both cited by 35.7 per cent). This creates a conundrum⁷, in which factory bosses are reluctant to invest in research and development, even though they realise that innovation holds the key to their survival.

然而，技术工人短缺、借贷成本高企再加上知识产权保护不力让转型变得很艰难。40.5%的工厂企业主表示，知识产权保护不力是阻碍创新的头号因素，而认为获取信贷和技术工人短缺是阻碍创新头号因素的企业主比例均是35.7%。这造成了一个难题：工厂老板不愿投资于研发，即便他们认识到，创新对他们的生存至关重要。

Financing poses another major challenge, with more than 90 per cent of respondents finding it difficult or very difficult to borrow money. Those who get credit are paying a hefty price. Almost two thirds of factory owners report annual financing costs of more than 10 per cent (including interest and fees). That’s well above the one-year benchmark borrowing rate, which stands at 5.35 per cent and the average profit margin⁸ for Chinese manufacturers, of 5.18 per cent in Q1 2015.

融资带来了另一个主要挑战——逾90%的受访者发现难以或者非常难借到钱。那些获得信贷的企业主支付了很高的代价。近三分之二的工厂企业主表示，年融资成本（包括利息和手续费）超过10%。这远高于一年期基准贷款利率（5.35%）以及中国制造商的平均利润率（2015年一季度是5.18%）。

Government policy may make life more, not less, difficult for small manufacturers. Beijing recently unveiled an ambitious plan to rejuvenate⁹ the country’s manufacturing sector¹⁰. Yet its Made in China 2025 Initiative is aimed at creating a smaller number of large national champions in each sector, in place of the small workshops that have powered China’s manufacturing boom to date. Factory owners see the writing on the wall: two thirds of them think both the number of factories and the number of workers employed in their industry in their township will decrease or remain flat in the coming years.

政府政策可能加剧而非减轻了小型制造商的困境。中国政府最近披露了振兴本国制造业的宏伟计划。然而，《中国制造2025规划》目标是在各个行业打造数目较少的大型国家冠军企业，以取代迄今为中国制造业繁荣提供动力的小型工厂。工厂企业主觉得形势不妙：三分之二的受访者认为，本城镇本行业的工厂数量和工人数量将会在今后几年缩减或者保持不变。

In the long run, such rationalisation and consolidation¹¹ appear to be in line with government objectives and labour-market trends, as the working-age and migrant-worker populations begin to shrink. It should help factory townships transition in line with China’s shifting economic winds.

长期而言，这种合理化关停和整合措施似乎符合政府目标和劳动力市场的发展趋势，因为处于劳动年龄的人口和农民工人口开始缩减。它应该有助于工业城镇顺着中国日新月异的经济风向转变。

But the short-term headwinds highlighted by FT Confidential Research’s surveys and factory visits suggest this transition will be slow and painful , with unwanted consequences for local industries and economies. It may be some time before the good times return to China’s small factory towns.

但就短期而言，英国《金融时报》旗下投资参考的调查和工厂考察突显出的各种阻力因素表明，这种转变将是缓慢和痛苦的，而且还会对当地产业和经济带来不受欢迎的后果。中国小型工业城镇恢复好光景可能还得一些时日。