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China’s economic slowdown is the greatest challenge facing the European companies in the country, with about one in four planning layoffs and nearly one in six reporting falling revenue in 2014, according to the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.
中国欧盟商会(European Union Chamber of Commerce in China)表示，中国经济增速放缓是在华欧洲企业面临的最大挑战，大约有四分之一的公司计划裁员，近六分之一称2014年的收益出现下跌。
But a survey the group conducted of 541 companies, ranging in size from family-owned machine makers to multinationals like BASF, showed that European companies remain committed to China, though they are reconsidering their strategies, said Jörg Wuttke, the president of the chamber, presenting its Business Confidence Survey 2015 on Wednesday to a media conference in Beijing.
不过，商会主席约尔格·伍德克(Jörg Wuttke)周三在北京的一次媒体会议上推介《中国欧盟商会商业信心调查2015》(Business Confidence Survey 2015)时表示，该组织对541家公司——其中既包括机械制造方面的家族企业，也包括巴斯夫(BASF)这样的跨国企业——进行的调查表明，欧洲企业仍然看好中国，尽管它们在重新考虑公司政策。
“We don’t see that members are leaving, or we don’t see that European companies are leaving China,” Mr. Wuttke said. “We see actually that they are diversifying globally, by making new investments in other places.”
“我们没有看到成员在离开，也没有看到欧洲企业在离开中国，”伍德克说。“我们看到的实际情况是，它们在其他地方进行新的投资，从而实现在全球范围内的多元化。”
“China is just too important in size, and still in potential, and there is no second China in the aisles, waiting,” Mr. Wuttke said.A major irritation for the companies is the Chinese state’s restrictions on Internet access, and also Internet download speeds — five times slower than in nearby South Korea, Mr. Wuttke said.
“从规模来看，中国实在太重要了，从潜力方面而言也依然如此，没有第二个中国在候场，”伍德克说。他还表示，让企业困扰的一大问题是中国对互联网的限制，还有网络下载的速度——比邻近的韩国慢了五倍。
For China, the second-largest economy in the world after the United States, “the largest exporter in the world, for possibly the biggest foreign investor elsewhere in the world in the next years to come, it is simply not fitting to be five times slower than South Korea,” Mr. Wuttke said.
作为仅次于美国的世界第二大经济体，中国是“世界最大的出口国，或许不久的将来还会成为世界最大的对外投资国。在这种情况下，网速比韩国慢五倍十分欠妥，”伍德克说。
The Chinese government operates an Internet filter, known as the Great Firewall, to keep out many overseas Internet sites in the interests of national security.
中国政府在使用一个名为“防火长城”(Great Firewall)的网络过滤系统，以维护国家安全利益的名义屏蔽了许多海外网站。
In recent months, many Chinese and non-Chinese have complained that the virtual private networks that lift them out of China’s controlled Internet environment have stopped working, or only work spottily, affecting a range of activities including international business and research and international families’ ability to pay their bills or carry out routine matters in their countries of origin.
最近几个月，许多中外人士纷纷抱怨，让他们得以摆脱受控的中国互联网环境的虚拟专用网络（virtual private networks，简称VPN）无法使用，或者只能断断续续地工作，从而对一系列活动造成了影响，包括国际商务和研究，以及海外家庭支付账单或处理本国日常事务。
Nearly 60 percent of companies reported that the inability to gain access to certain websites in China had a negative effect on their business, with difficulty searching online and sharing information leading to lower productivity, according to the survey.
调查发现，近60%的企业表示，由于无法在中国境内访问某些网站，网络搜索和分享信息的困难导致了生产率降低，从而让公司业务受到了负面影响。
“It’s a difficult topic because it’s diverse” and touches two major issues: speed and access control, said Mr. Wuttke, noting there are about two million websites of all kinds that Chinese agencies claim have negative security implications for China and must be blocked.
伍德克表示，“这是个棘手的话题，因为具有多样性”，而且还涉及两大问题：网速和访问控制。他指出，共有大约200万个各式网站无法访问，而根据中国有关部门的说法，它们对中国的安全存在威胁，所以必须屏蔽。
“On the speed, there has been a response, there has been a pledge for investment and we welcome that, but on the access control we haven’t seen any loosening, rather the contrary,” he said.
“网速问题得到了一定的反馈，政府承诺会进行投资，我们对此表示欢迎；但是在访问控制方面，我们尚未看到任何放松迹象，反倒越来越严格了，”他说。
“In particular, some of these websites are financial information that is crucial for making decisions,” he said. “It is really a business constraint.”
“特别是其中一些网站提供了对决策至关重要的金融信息，”他说。“这的确是一种商业约束。”
And Mr. Wuttke, the chief representative in China of BASF, the German chemical multinational, had some advice for people trying to talk to top officials about the problem: “It is better talking to them than sending them an email,” he joked.
伍德克是德国化工跨国企业巴斯夫驻中国的首席代表。他为试图与中国高层官员讨论网络问题的人提供了一些建议，笑称，“最好是跟他们交谈，而不是发邮件。”
Obstacles to market access because of discriminatory government policies remain in China for European companies — notably, government procurement contracts are out of bounds, despite the fact that Chinese companies are increasingly vying for these overseas — but a wave of antimonopoly fines levied by the government last year and early this year may be fading.
对于欧洲公司来说，政府的歧视性政策导致中国仍然在市场准入方面存在重重障碍——尤其是，政府采购合同是外企无法进入的领域，尽管中国企业越来越多地在海外参与此类合同的竞争——但政府去年和今年初掀起的反垄断罚款浪潮可能会有所减弱。
This year, major foreign companies such as Mercedes-Benz, the German auto company, and Qualcomm, the American chip maker, were heavily fined by government regulators for antimonopoly practices, prominent instances of regulatory zeal that many foreign companies felt were unfairly directed at them and not at Chinese companies.
今年，德国汽车公司梅赛德斯-奔驰(Mercedes-Benz)和美国芯片生产商高通(Qualcomm)等大型外企遭到中国政府反垄断行为监管机构的重罚，成为这股监管狂潮中的著名案例。很多外国公司觉得监管并不公平，只针对它们，却放过了中国公司。
Mr. Wuttke did not directly answer a question about whether the issue was resolved but said that the chamber had held “very complex and complicated” meetings with government regulators.
伍德克没有直接回答该问题是否已经解决的提问，但表示，中国欧盟商会与政府监管机构召开了“非常复杂而棘手”的会议。
“The outcome was in fact a government understanding to the extent that we had a great meeting with the National Development and Reform Commission at the beginning of the year,” he said, referring to a major economic and social policy body that is one of several government groups in charge of setting price levels, without giving specifics.
“这一结果实际上是政府给予了一定的理解，我们今年年初与国家发展和改革委员会举行了一次重要的会议，”他说，不过并未透露细节。发改委是一个重要的经济与社会政策机构，是负责设定物价水平的几个政府部门之一。
Over all, the number of European companies recording declining revenue was up by three percentage points, to 15 percent, over the previous year, though the number of companies reporting growing revenue, about 60 percent, was stable, the survey showed.
调查显示，总的来说，收入减少的欧洲公司的数量在过去一年中提高了三个百分点，增至15%，但收入增长的公司的数量保持稳定，占60%左右。
Nearly 40 percent of the European companies surveyed were planning to cut costs, and 61 percent of those said they would do so through layoffs. That means 23.7 percent are planning to cut jobs.
将近40%接受调查的欧洲企业计划压缩成本，其中61%的公司表示，会通过裁员来实现这一点。这意味着，有23.7%的公司计划裁员。
But China is growing “below potential,” Mr. Wuttke said.
不过伍德克表示，中国的经济增长“低于其潜力”。
Internet problems, pollution and restrictive visa policies make for a “cocktail” of negative factors, he said.
他认为，网络问题、污染及严格的签证政策构成了消极因素的“组合”。
“So it’s a cocktail I think of rule of law, Internet speed, pollution and visa policy, that lets China actually grow below potential,” he said.
“我觉得是法治、网速、污染及签证政策这些组合因素导致中国的增长低于它的潜力，”他说。
“There is a sense of urgency that the old toolbox is not working as good as it used to, and the new toolbox is not in place yet,” he said, referring to China’s own desire to shift up the manufacturing ladder to higher-end products and away from cheap manufacturing and a fixed-investment model of growth.
“中国有一种紧迫感，旧的那一套不像过去那么有效了，而新的模式还没有到位，”他说。这里指的是中国想要摆脱廉价生产加固定资产投资的增长模式，向高端产品制造业升级。
The Chinese economy grew 7.4 percent last year, according to the government, the slowest pace in 24 years. Officials have predicted growth of “about 7 percent” this year.
根据政府公布的数据，中国去年的经济增长率为7.4%，为24年以来的最低水平。官方预测今年的增速“在7%左右”。
