Two articles from today's LA Times, the first on import stats from the Port of Long Beach:
latimes.com
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Asian Imports Jump 34% at Long Beach
Trade: Port's March increase is the first strong evidence of the impact of the region's economic woes in the U.S.
By EVELYN IRITANI, Times Staff Writer
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The long-awaited export push from Asia's battered economies got underway in March as shipments from that region through the Port of Long Beach, the nation's biggest container port, jumped more than 34% over the same month last year.
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Until now, the strongest evidence of the impact of the Asian woes on the U.S. has been a steep fall in U.S. shipments to the region. Despite anecdotal evidence of heavy demand for shipping capacity out of Asia, the statistical rise in inbound merchandise had been modest.
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"We're finally seeing it," said Don Wylie, the port's director of trade and maritime services. "To see this strong growth this early in the year is unusual. . . . ">>>>
And the second, James Flanigan on China's early moves towards a market economy:
latimes.com
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Wednesday, April 22, 1998
A Chinese Tale That Americans Know Well
By JAMES FLANIGAN
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SHANGHAI--China's economic reform, a vast undertaking to restructure the operations of socialist state enterprises by reducing staff and shutting down uneconomical operations, is in many ways a story familiar to Southern California, which only yesterday endured the downsizing of aerospace companies.
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China is going through its own acquisition binge and at the same time is discovering the value of small business.
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China's reforms didn't begin in cities such as Shanghai, a sprawling metropolis of 13 million, but in villages in rural areas as long ago as 1978. That was the year Deng Xiaoping, the late leader whom every Chinese official now cites as a reference point, started the long march to a market economy.
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"Deng was acute," says Professor Zhou Dun Ren, an economist at Shanghai's Fudan University. Deng didn't start by attacking the large state enterprises but by encouraging cooperative enterprises at the village level.
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Village cooperatives didn't suffer as much control from the central government, Zhou explains, so they could produce more efficiently. Soon they were supplying parts to state enterprises. Then towns and cities set up their own small companies to manufacture products.
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Decisions were still made on a political basis, but by smaller, more local units than the central government.
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And now all that is changing again. Business is being organized in what we would recognize as companies with shareholders but also with government influence. Two examples--one an electrical-parts producer and the other a start-up company in business services--reflect the growing power, and also the struggles, of small business in China's economy today. . . .>>>> |
