Antoine van Agtmael thinks that firms in the rich world have not fully digested the rise of the emerging markets 安东尼•冯•阿格塔米尔认为，富有国家的企业没有完全体会到到新兴市场的崛起
Apr 15th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
EMERGING markets have been exceedingly kind to Antoine van Agtmael. His company, Emerging Markets Management, controls some $13 billion-worth of investments in them. His name guarantees him access to their most powerful politicians and businessmen. He is such a respected figure in America that he has been made chairman of National Public Radio, the local equivalent of being given a seat in the House of Lords. This is only as it should be: Mr van Agtmael was the man who coined the term “emerging markets”. 新兴市场极为善待安东尼•冯•阿格塔米尔。阿格塔米尔的新兴市场管理公司掌控着这些市场价值130亿美元的投资。他的名头确保他能接近新兴市场最有权势的政治家和商人。他在美洲备受尊敬，被推选为国家广播电台的主席，这在英国相当于得到了上院的席位。这一切理所当然：正是阿格塔米尔构想了 “新兴市场”的概念。
These days the market in business catchphrases is saturated. Every business writer wants to produce a rival to “The World is Flat” or “The Long Tail”. Every management consultancy wants to coin the follow-up to “re-engineering” or “total quality management”. Such famous turns of phrase are the gurus’ equivalent of brands: they burnish their reputations for original thinking and ensure that they stand out in a crowd. A brilliant catchphrase can be worth millions in book sales and speaking fees. 现在，商业话题的市场处于饱和状态。每一位商业作家都想写出媲美《世界是平的》或《长尾理论》的作品。每一家管理咨询公司都想提出 “重组”或“全面质量管理”的后续概念。这些大名鼎鼎的词句相当于大师的品牌：为原创思想增光添彩，确保大师们成为众所瞩目的焦点。一个响亮的词语就能带来高达数百万的图书销量和演讲费。
“Emerging markets” is one of those terms that has buried itself so deeply in our brains that we have no idea that it once represented a bold challenge to conventional thinking. Before Mr van Agtmael coined the phrase in 1981 the region was referred to as either “the third world” or “the developing world”. “新兴市场”这个概念深植于我们的脑海中，我们不了解这个词曾经代表了对传统思维的大胆挑战。1981年安东尼•冯•阿格塔米尔构想出这个词以前，这一地区被称为“第三世界”或“发展中国家”。
Bankers regarded the “third world” as little more than the financial equivalent of a rat hole. The term conjured up images of “flimsy polyester, cheap toys, rampant corruption, Soviet-style tractors and flooded rice paddies”, as Mr van Agtmael puts it. Western governments regarded “the developing world” as an object of largesse—an area that could be rescued from poverty only by a combination of donations from the rich world and better economic planning by developing countries’ governments. 银行家认为，“第三世界”不过是金融界的老鼠洞。阿格塔米尔指出，这个词让人想到“劣质涤纶、廉价玩具、腐败蔓延、苏联式拖拉机和水稻田泛滥”的画面。西方政府认为，“发展中国家”是施舍的对象，该地区只有靠富裕国家的捐助和发展中国家政府改善经济计划才能摆脱贫困。
Mr van Agtmael argues that his idiosyncratic background gave him the wherewithal to challenge conventional thinking. He grew up in the Netherlands. His schoolteachers frequently talked about the country’s historical ties with Indonesia. He even owned a few shares in global Dutch giants such as Philips and Unilever. He spent a decade working in the private sector—including a stint at a Thai subsidiary of an American bank, Bankers Trust—before eventually ending up at the World Bank’s investment arm, the International Finance Corporation. 阿格塔米尔认为，自己独特的成长背景给予他挑战传统思维的资本。他在荷兰长大，学校的老师常常讲到荷兰和印度尼西亚的历史关系。他甚至还在飞利浦和联合利华等荷兰的全球大公司有一些股份。他在私有部门工作了10年，曾就职于美国信孚银行的泰国分行，最后到世界银行下属的投资部门国际金融公司任职。
He was uncomfortable with the banking industry’s contempt for the developing world. (One of his bosses at Bankers Trust once told him, “There are no markets outside the United States.”) But he was equally unhappy with the World Bank’s obsession with state-driven development. He became an evangelist for the power of private investment to turbocharge growth. But how could you persuade wary bankers to invest in the third world? He had a eureka moment after making an investment pitch to Salomon Brothers: why not replace the depressing-sounding phrases used to describe poorer countries with the more upbeat “emerging markets”? 他十分不满银行业对发展中国家的蔑视。（他在美国信孚银行的一位上司曾经告诉他：“除了美国以外就没有市场”。）他同样不满世界银行追求国家主导的发展。他开始宣传私人投资对加速增长的影响。可你怎么能说服小心谨慎的银行家到第三世界投资呢？有一次对所罗门兄弟公司作投资宣传后，他突发奇想：为什么不能用乐观向上的“新兴市场”代替过去形容贫穷国家的生硬词语？
Almost 30 years later Mr van Agtmael remains as bullish about emerging markets as ever. He has seen the category grow to include formerly closed economies such as China and Vietnam. He has seen emerging-market champions go from welcoming the term as uplifting to rejecting it as condescending. (His publisher in China changed the title of his latest book from “The Emerging-Market Century” to “The World is New”.) Most striking of all, he has seen the developing world start to produce some of the world’s biggest and best companies, a legion of giants that are shaking up the West’s comfortable assumption that it will continue to lead the world in global reach, technology, design and marketing. Mexico’s CEMEX is the largest cement company in America, the second largest in Britain and the third largest in the world. Acer of Taiwan is vying to become the world’s second-biggest manufacturer of personal computers. Brazil’s Aracruz is the world’s largest and most profitable producer of pulp for paper and tissues. He even cites Russia’s Gazprom, which controls more gas reserves than all the West’s big oil firms combined. 将近30年后，阿格塔米尔一如既往地对新兴市场充满信心。他见证了包括中国和越南在内封闭经济体的发展，见证了新兴市场的领头羊从高高兴兴地接受这个概念，到屈尊降贵地摒弃这一说法。（他在中国的出版商把他新书的名字从《新兴市场世纪》换成了《世界是新的》。）最为显著的是，他见证了发展中国家产生了全球规模最大、最优秀的一些企业和众多大公司，动摇了西方自认为继续在全球科技、设计和营销上领先于世界的美好假设。墨西哥水泥公司是美洲最大的水泥企业，在英国排名第二，位居世界第三。台湾的宏碁电脑公司力争成为全球第二大个人电脑制造商。巴西的阿拉克鲁兹公司是全球最大、利润最高的纸浆和纸品生产商。他甚至提到了俄罗斯天然气公司，这家公司的天然气储备比西方各大石油企业加起来都多。
Just as the West once underestimated the potential of emerging markets, now it underestimates the power of the region’s corporate champions, Mr van Agtmael believes. These companies are no longer content to be mere followers. They have built global brands: South Korea’s Samsung is one of the world’s best known makers of electronic goods (Mr van Agtmael still classifies South Korea as an emerging market), for example, and Mexico’s Grupo Modelo produces one of the most recognised brands of beer in the world, Corona. 阿格塔米尔坚信，正如西方一度低估了新兴市场的潜力一样，现在西方低估了该地区的龙头企业。这些企业不再满足于亦步亦趋。他们建立了全球品牌：比如说，韩国的三星就是一家全球知名的电器制造商（阿格塔米尔依然把韩国划分为新兴市场），墨西哥的莫德罗集团生产世界上最受认可的名牌啤酒科罗娜。
Emerging and upstaging 冉冉上升
Reconciling the rich world to the rise of these powerhouses will be as difficult as integrating the third world into the global market, Mr van Agtmael argues. He knows as well as anybody that global trade can benefit all involved—that the emerging world’s gains do not have to be paid for by the rich world’s losses. Where Samuel Huntington predicted a “clash of civilisations”, he hopes for a “creative collision” that will lead to innovation. He points out that some of the most fraught economic rivalries in recent history—the space race of the 1960s and Japan’s rise in the 1980s—provoked creative rather than defensive responses. 阿格塔米尔认为，让富裕国家接纳新兴国家的崛起，和让第三世界融入全球市场一样困难。他深知，全球贸易能够惠及所有人，新兴市场的盈利不必以富裕国家的损失为代价。塞缪尔亨廷顿预测“文明冲突”之时，希望出现“创造力的碰撞”引领革新。他指出，近代史上最激烈的经济竞争，比如20世纪60年代的太空竞赛和80年代日本的崛起，引发了创造力而不是防御反应。
But he is nevertheless worried about the sirens of protectionism. Mr van Agtmael points out that America and its allies have been on top of the world for so long that it will take a huge psychological adjustment to treat the likes of India and China as economic equals (his office has a spectacular view over the centre of Washington, DC, with its many monuments to America’s glorious past). He also thinks that most people have no idea how serious the challenge from the emerging world has become. Perhaps the very phrase “emerging markets” may end up blinding people to the fact that many of these markets have already emerged. 不过，他还是担心保护主义的危险诱惑。阿格塔米尔指出，美国及其盟友长期处于世界之巅，需要大量的心理调整，才能把中国和印度看做经济强国（他的办公室可以饱览华盛顿中心的景观，周围有许多纪念美国辉煌历史的建筑）。他还认为，大多数人并不明白新兴国家的挑战非同小可。或许，正是“新兴市场”这个概念，最终让盲目的人们了解到许多新兴市场早已崛起的事实。
