中國購物中心建設方興未艾

Ruan Zhaoxia cannot recall seeing a single luxury brand in China’s inland city of Wuhan when she first moved there 14 years ago.

阮朝霞記得，14年前她剛搬到中國內地城市武漢時，在那裏連一個奢侈品牌都沒看到。

But by last year Wuhan had so many brand-packed shopping malls that it ranked first in the world for shopping mall completion, with almost 1m square metres of malls.

但到去年，武漢已擁有了如此多品牌林立的購物中心，以接近100萬平方米的面積，在購物中心完工面積上居於世界首位。

The mainland shopping mall market continues to boom, despite China’s economic slowdown and the woes of the property market. Though visitors to big Chinese cities are often struck by the sheer number of luxury malls — and the paucity of customers shopping in them — many smaller Chinese cities are still underserved with the kind of malls in which China’s increasingly demanding middle-class customers want to eat, shop and be entertained.

儘管中國經濟放緩、房地產市場困難重重，但內地購物中心市場仍在蓬勃發展。雖然前往中國大城市的遊客經常對奢侈購物中心的數量之多——以及購物中心內顧客之少——感到吃驚，但在許多中小城市，那種中國越來越挑剔的中產顧客想在其中吃飯、購物和娛樂的購物中心仍然供應不足。

Building increasingly appealing shopping malls — and enticing more and more people to spend money in them — is a key part of Beijing’s plan to boost consumption-driven growth in China, at a time when investment-led growth has faltered, leaving China with its slowest GDP growth in six years.

在投資引導型增長模式熄火、中國國內生產總值(GDP)增速降至6年來最低水平之際，興建越來越有吸引力的購物中心，並吸引越來越多人前往購物中心消費，是北京方面推動中國實現消費驅動型增長計劃的一個關鍵部分。

According to a recent report by CBRE, the real estate consultancy, 44 per cent of all global shopping market completions last year were in China, and nine out of the top 10 top cities for mall space under construction were in China too. Wuhan, Chengdu and Beijing, China’s top three cities, contributed half of new completions in China last year, and most Wuhan malls are more than 80 per cent occupied, in contrast with many others in China which find it tough to get tenants, CBRE says.

根據房地產諮詢公司世邦魏理仕(CBRE)不久前的一份報告，中國佔去年全球購物中心完工總面積的44%，在建購物中心面積最大的十個城市有九個在中國。世邦魏理仕表示，中國購物中心完工面積最大的三個城市——武漢、成都和北京，貢獻了去年中國新增購物中心完工面積的一半，武漢大多數購物中心的商家入駐率都超過了80%，與中國其他許多城市很難找到商家承租的情況形成對比。

The main engine for the mall surge is China’s emerging middle class, which will hit 630m by 2022, double the current population of the US, according to McKinsey. “Middle class demand for retail, catering and leisure infrastructure continues to rise, leading to a strong performance in the mall market,” says Ke Chen, a Shanghai-based partner of retail consultancy Kurt Salmon.

新興中產階層是中國購物中心市場大發展的主要動力。麥肯錫(McKinsey)數據顯示，到2022年，中國中產階層數量將達到6.3億，爲美國目前人口的兩倍。“中產階層對零售、餐飲服務和休閒基礎設施的需求持續升溫，導致購物中心市場表現強勁，”零售業諮詢公司博楷管理諮詢(Kurt Salmon)駐上海的合夥人陳科表示。

But Jones Lang LaSalle, the real estate services company, predicts that mall development could peak between now and 2017, because the expected return on investment has fallen. “Developers . . . are not rushing to start projects like they used to,” says Steven McCord, head of research for North China.

但房地產服務公司仲量聯行(Jones Lang LaSalle)預測，購物中心開發可能在目前到2017年之間的某個時候見頂，因爲預期投資回報率已有所下降。“開發商……現在不像過去那樣急着開工新項目了，”仲量聯行中國華北區研究總監史蒂文•麥科德(Steven McCord)說。

“Returns . . . have softened because sales growth rates have slowed. Malls are facing competition from three sources: online, overseas and outlets,” he says.

“回報率……已降下來了，因爲銷售增長放慢下來了。購物中心正面臨三個渠道的競爭：電商、海外商戶和奧特萊斯店，”他說。

Even so, good-quality shopping malls remain in high demand. “There are so many shopping malls but so few good ones”, says Mr Chen, who notes that years of blind construction and poor positioning in the market have left China with many similar malls. “They have the same brands, the same interiors, and are not particularly interesting,” says Mr McCord. He says branding is very important for malls that wish to thrive in China, singling out K11, an art-themed mall brand backed by Hong Kong jeweller Chow Tai Fook.

即便如此，高質量的購物中心仍有很大需求。“中國的購物中心非常多，但好的購物中心又太少了，”陳科說。他指出，多年盲目建設和市場定位不佳的結果是，中國現在有太多類似的購物中心。“它們有着相同的品牌，相同的內部格局，並不是特別吸引人，”麥科德說。他說，品牌建設對於想在中國蓬勃發展的購物中心來說非常重要。他專門提到了香港珠寶商周大福(Chow Tai Fook)投資的K11藝術購物中心品牌。

K11 so far has one mall in Shanghai but the company says it plans to build at least 12 more by 2020, including no less than two in Wuhan. “Consumers really want to experience something a little different,” says Mr McCord.

K11迄今在上海只有一家購物中心，但該公司表示，計劃到2020年要建至少12個購物中心，其中在武漢不少於2個。“消費者真的希望體驗一種不一樣的東西，”麥科德說。

“Copying and pasting something that ‘worked’ in Stockholm or Silicon Valley is tempting, but not really the right answer” in China, he says, adding that “the ecommerce threat [affects the fashion sector] more in China than almost anywhere else in the world, and most goods tend to be overpriced by world standards”.

麥克德說：“拷貝在斯德哥爾摩或硅谷‘管用的’模式很有誘惑力，但在中國未必行得通。”他接着說，“在中國，電子商務（對時尚行業）的威脅比在世界其他任何地方都要大，而且以世界標準看，大多數商品通常定價過高。”

Most people go to malls, first and foremost, to eat and be entertained “and malls have to do this right”, he says, but notes that “these are low rent paying trades compared to boutiques, the mainstay rent generators of the past”. Still, no one is betting against the desire of the Chinese middle class to spend money — especially the young, who are rapidly reversing their parents’ habit of saving much more than they spend.

他說，多數人去購物中心，首要的是去吃飯和娛樂，“購物中心在這方面必須做對”。但他指出，“與過去的交租大戶——精品店——相比，這些生意交的租金較低”。儘管如此，誰也不能逆中國中產階層的消費意願而動——尤其是年輕人，他們的消費習慣與他們的父輩那種儲蓄大大超過支出的習慣相反，且正在迅速取代後者成爲主流。