人身安全：新興市場不能說的秘密
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????如果你得到了一份誘人的工作，工作的地點是在俄羅斯、墨西哥、巴西、哥倫比亞或其他擁有巨大潛力的新興市場，你會接受這份工作嗎？或者，你是否會鄭重其事地考慮自己真的愿意把家人也帶過去？而且你是否會想，如果家人安全讓人日夜懸心，自己晚上還能不能安然入睡？ ????最近，我和兩名新興市場的高層人士聊了聊。他們讓我想到了人們經常忽視的兩個重大問題，同時也是很多新興市場所面臨的問題：人身安全問題及其近親“腐敗問題”。這兩個問題無法量化，因此我們經常認為它們并不重要，而且總是把注意力放在了中國經濟今年是增長6%還是增長8%這樣的問題上。但是，安全和腐敗問題會對商業人士的決策產生重大影響，只是沒有人愿意公開討論罷了。 ????第一位是巴西某私營公司的首席執行官。他是巴西當地人，與妻子和三個孩子住在里約熱內盧一棟十分別致但并不大的房子里。他所在的公司也不是特別有名。他告訴我，他所有的車都配備了武器。他說，他并不擔心他自己。“不法分子不會綁架我，他們也許會嘗試綁架我妻子或孩子。”他為妻子和孩子雇了專業司機。他說，高管們自己通常不會乘坐配有武器的車，而是打出租車，這樣顯得低調，不引人注目，而且更安全。 ????第二位是墨西哥頂尖的經濟學家，過去30年中經常出入政府。我們對墨西哥經濟進行了深入探討。在我看來，很多分析師對墨西哥經濟持樂觀態度，但他卻不是這樣。我問起墨西哥總統佩尼亞?涅托面臨的最大的挑戰是什么時，他對這個問題給出了一個與經濟毫無關系的答案。他不假思索地回答說：“安全問題”。他指出，政府實際上對很大一部分國土都沒有控制權，因此在解決這個問題之前，政府難以在經濟上有所作為。 ????毫無疑問，新興市場的安全問題正得到改善。最近，也就是索契冬奧會前夕，俄羅斯所發生的爆炸事件是對普京總統“終極硬漢”策略的諷刺。去年的ArcelorMittal（MT）高管弗吉利歐?卡馬喬謀殺案至今仍懸而未決，而事件的幕后指使者顯然是販毒集團；就在上周，反對販毒集團的一群武裝分子占領了當地一個城鎮的政府。此前，販毒分子一直在這個城鎮橫行霸道。過去的一年中，多名中國企業高管人間蒸發，抓他們的人并不是犯罪分子，而是全力打擊腐敗的中國調查人員。幾個月來，這些高管一直杳無音訊。 ????幾乎沒有人愿意公開討論人身安全問題，因此有關這類事件的消息并不多。但是它們跟大家愿意談論的貿易平衡、利率等話題沒有什么區別，都是切切實實存在的問題。而且，這些問題才是決定新興經濟體的未來的根本性問題。（財富中文網） ????譯者：翔?? |
????If you were offered an attractive job in Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, or another high-potential emerging market, would you take it? Or would you think seriously about whether you really wanted to bring your family there and wonder if you'd be able to sleep at night worrying about their safety? ????Talking recently with a couple of high-level players from emerging markets, I was reminded of how frequently we ignore two of the most significant issues that many of those markets face: personal security and its close cousin, corruption. They're impossible to quantify, so we often conclude that they're not important, obsessing instead over whether China will grow at 6% or 8% this year. But safety and corruption influence business people's decisions importantly. It's just that no one wants to talk about any of it publicly. ????Player No. 1 is the CEO of a privately held Brazilian company. He's a native Brazilian and lives in a beautiful but not large house in Rio de Janeiro with his wife and three young kids. His company isn't especially well known. He tells me that all of his cars are armored. He isn't worried about himself, he says. "The bad guys aren't going to kidnap me. They're going to try to kidnap my wife or kids." His wife and kids are driven around by a professional driver. Executives themselves often forego the armored car, he says, preferring to hail a cab -- unostentatious, anonymous, more secure. ????Player No. 2 is a top economist in Mexico who has been in and out of government over the past 30 years. We talk at length about Mexico's economy -- he isn't as upbeat as many of the analysts I've been reading -- but when I ask him to name the top issue facing President Pe?a Nieto, his answer has nothing to do with the economy. "Security," he answers immediately. The government simply isn't in control of large parts of the country, he points out, and it's hard to do much for the economy until that gets fixed. ????It's by no means clear that security is improving in emerging markets. The recent bombings in Russia, just ahead of the winter Olympics, mock President Putin's ultra-tough-guy tactics. The murder in Mexico last year of a top ArcelorMittal (MT) executive, Virgilio Camacho, apparently on the orders of a drug cartel, remains unsolved; just this past weekend, a group of armed vigilantes opposed to the cartel took over the government of a town where the cartel has run free. Several top Chinese executives have vanished in the past year, taken not by criminals but by Chinese investigators who are apparently cracking down on corruption. These men haven't been heard from in months. ????Talking publicly about personal danger is in almost no one's interest, so we don't hear much about these issues. But they're just as real as the subjects everyone would rather talk about -- trade balances, interest rates, etc. -- and for the future of emerging economies, they're far more fundamental. |
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