越南咖啡连锁品牌仲景传奇（Trung Nguyen Legend）正在中国酝酿大业务，供应其招牌慢滴现磨咖啡混合豆，原料现采自越南。
Vietnamese coffee chain Trung Nguyen Legend has been brewing up big business in China, serving its signature slow-dripped ground blends sourced fresh from Vietnam.
随着其门店网络在中国不断扩张，物流已成为瓶颈。该公司专注于在季节性从越南种植园采购咖啡豆，但通过公路和海运运往中国的路线迂回曲折，偶尔会出现延误。
As its network of stores expands across China, logistics has become a bottleneck. It focuses on buying coffee beans in season from plantations in Vietnam, but road-and-sea transport to China follows a circuitous route with occasional delays.
该公司寄希望于中国首条江海直达运河——本月早些时候刚刚通航——能提供一条捷径。
It hopes China’s first river-to-sea canal, which opened earlier this month, will offer a short cut.
东南亚各地的企业也寄望于平陆运河，这条运河填补了中国西南腹地通往国际海运走廊的缺失一环，期盼其能成为商品流入世界第二大经济体的通道，而不仅仅是中国出口商品冲击其海岸的又一条路径。
Businesses across Southeast Asia also hope the Pinglu Canal, which fills a missing link between China’s southwestern hinterland and international maritime corridors, can be a conduit for the flow of goods into the world’s second-largest economy, not just another route for the tidal wave of Chinese exports hitting their shores.
“装载咖啡豆的大型海驳将能顺着新运河直达南宁等中国内陆枢纽，”仲景传奇在南宁的区域联合经理黄伟强表示。“无需换装小型船只……这有望为我们在中国带来更多销售。”东南亚国家联盟（东盟）的11个成员国热切期盼这条位于中国南方广西壮族自治区、全长134.2公里的运河通航。许多人预期其将为贸易和物流带来正向溢出效应，因为它将中国西南地区的内河航运干线与北部湾（越南称北部湾为Bắc Bộ，即Beibu Gulf，英文文本用Gulf of Tonkin即东京湾/北部湾）连通起来。
“Large seagoing barges carrying coffee beans from Vietnam will be able to sail along the new canal straight up to Nanning and other inland Chinese hubs,” said Trung Nguyen’s regional co-manager in Nanning, Huang Weiqiang. “No need to change to smaller vessels … potentially, this can bring more sales for us in China.”The 11 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations eagerly anticipated the launch of the 134.2km canal in southern China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. Many expect a positive spillover for trade and logistics, as it connects inland rivers and shipping arteries in southwestern China to the Gulf of Tonkin – known as Beibu Gulf in China.
据官方新华社早前报道，该运河是1949年中华人民共和国成立以来建设的首条人工江海联通运河。
The canal is the first man-made waterway connecting a river to the sea to be built since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported earlier.
该项目计划投资727亿元人民币（约108亿美元），于2022年8月开工建设，设计可通航5000吨级船舶，预计每年可节省综合运输成本50亿元人民币以上。但也有人担忧，新基建可能让中国与东盟的贸易更加失衡。
With a planned investment of 72.7 billion yuan (US$10.8 billion), the project, which began construction in August 2022, is designed to accommodate vessels of up to 5,000 tonnes and save more than 5 billion yuan in overall transportation costs each year. But concerns have also been raised that the new infrastructure might make China-Asean trade even more lopsided.
在9月21日结束的广西首府南宁举办的年度中国—东盟博览会上，来自越南、泰国和新加坡的出口商及贸易官员表示，运河应让外资企业受益程度不亚于中国出口商。
Exporters and trade officials from Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore at the annual China-Asean Expo in Nanning, Guangxi’s regional capital, which ended on September 21, said the canal should benefit foreign businesses to the same degree as Chinese exporters.
“运河应促进双向贸易，尤其是北京已无数次承诺扩大进口，”泰国投资促进委员会驻广州办事处一位官员表示。
“The canal should facilitate two-way trade, especially when Beijing has vowed umpteen times to expand imports,” an official from the Thailand Board of Investment’s Guangzhou office said.
“它不应只服务于中国[出口]至泰国，也应服务于泰国至中国。更多泰国商品，无论是榴莲、大米还是电子元件，[希望]能经由运河更深入地流向中国。” 期望运河能刺激更多中国进口，源于东盟与中国——该集团最大贸易伙伴——累积的贸易逆差。
“It should not only be for China [exporting] to Thailand, but also Thailand to China. More Thai goods, be it durian, rice or electronic components, can [hopefully] flow via the canal deeper into China.”Hopes that the canal will spur more Chinese imports stem from the trade deficit that Asean has racked up with China, the bloc’s largest trading partner.
中国海关数据显示，今年前八个月，东盟自中国进口商品达5460亿美元，同比增长25.8%，而该集团对华出口额为3167亿美元。
Asean imported US$546 billion worth of goods from China in the first eight months of this year, up 25.8 per cent year on year, while the bloc’s exports to China stood at US$316.7 billion, China Customs data showed.
由于平陆运河助货物绕过广州或上海中转，缩短距离、降低成本并避开拥堵，上述泰国官员称，本国贸易逆差可能扩大。
As Pinglu Canal helps cargo skip transits through Guangzhou or Shanghai, slashing distances and costs and avoiding congestion, the Thai official said her country’s trade deficit might grow.
“有了运河，在泰国运营的中国企业将获得一条更便捷、快速的渠道，从中国进口零部件和机械……亟需重新平衡贸易不对称，”她表示。
“With the canal, Chinese companies operating in Thailand will get an easier, quicker way to import parts and machinery from China … there is a need for rebalancing the trade asymmetry,” she said.
分析人士称，在贸易影响力版图变动中，运河可能将东南亚经济版图与中国内地捆绑得更紧密。
Analysts said the canal might bind Southeast Asia’s economic geography closer to inland China amid shifts in trade influence.
“平陆运河是一把双刃剑；东盟整体必须主动研究其影响，并充分利用它，”新加坡亚太创新与合作中心董事总经理陈爱丽（Alice Chan，音译）表示。
“Pinglu is a double-edged sword; Asean as a whole must proactively study the implications and make the best use of it,” said Alice Chan, managing director at the Singapore-based APAC Innovation and Collaboration Centre.
陈某补充道，像《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》（RCEP）这样的贸易协定，能够确保运河的红利均匀分配，并惠及中国和东盟。
Chan added that trade accords like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership could ensure the canal’s benefits were evenly distributed and felt in China and Asean.
马来西亚国际伊斯兰大学东盟研究教授潘金明（Phar Kim Beng）也认同，运河应成为双向贸易大道，而不应仅沦为北京投射其工业和贸易主导地位的又一途径。
Phar Kim Beng, professor of Asean Studies at the International Islamic University Malaysia, agreed that the canal should be a two-way trade street, not just another way for Beijing to project its industrial and trading dominance.
他在本月发布的一份报告中写道：“一旦广西及中国西南地区更广泛的货物进入北部湾，它们便已直面东盟……平陆运河是中国新的南向经济动脉。”“东盟必须防止该走廊沦为单向通道……更大的机遇在于让东盟产品更深入地渗透进中国西部市场。”
“Once goods from Guangxi and China’s broader southwest enter the Beibu Gulf, they are already facing Asean … Pinglu is China’s new southern economic artery,” he wrote in a report published this month. “Asean must prevent the corridor from becoming a one-sided avenue … the greater opportunity lies in making Asean products penetrate deeper into western China’s markets.”
他表示，问题不再仅仅是马来西亚产品如何抵达上海、深圳或广州，“马来西亚必须审视其企业如何触达中国传统沿海中心之外的巨大经济腹地。”尽管平陆运河引发褒贬不一的反响，但得益于它而成为可能的直达货运路线——如南宁至越南湄公河三角洲港口城市芹苴的路线——蕴藏着双向机遇的希望。
He said the question was no longer simply how Malaysian products could reach Shanghai, Shenzhen or Guangzhou, and “Malaysia must examine how its companies can reach the enormous economic spaces beyond China’s traditional coastal centres.”While the Pinglu Canal evokes mixed reactions, direct freight routes that would not have been possible without it, like the one between Nanning and the Vietnamese port city of Can Tho in the Mekong Delta, hold the promise of two-way opportunities.
越南咖啡连锁品牌Trung Nguyen的高管在南宁博览会上表示，该企业将考虑使用新航线。
Trung Nguyen, the Vietnamese coffee chain, was among the businesses that would consider using the new routes, its executives said at the expo in Nanning.
地处运河入海口的战略要地——已建园14年的中国—马来西亚钦州产业园，也希望挖掘其潜力，并已加大产业合作力度，以吸引更多外资制造商入驻。文/Frank Chen
The 14-year-old China–Malaysia Qinzhou Industrial Park, strategically located in the city where the canal empties into the sea, is also hoping to tap its potential and has stepped up industrial cooperation efforts to encourage more foreign manufacturers to set up shop there. By Frank Chen