经济学人377:阿联酋商业 提升沙漠气候

　　Business in the UAE

阿联酋商业

Improving the desert climate

提升沙漠气候

A draft companies law in the emirates is a bit disappointing

阿联酋的公司法草案不孚众望

FOREIGN investment is flooding back, the malls are filling with shoppers and deals are being struck: business in the United Arab Emirates is booming once again. The IMF this month upgraded its forecast for the emirates' economic growth in 2014 from 3.9% to 4.4%.

外国投资如潮水席卷而来，商场里顾客摩肩接踵交易量激增：阿联酋的商业再次繁荣，国际货币基金组织对阿联酋2014年经济增长的预算从3.9%上调到4.4%。

阿联酋.jpg

As memories of the crisis recede 1, companies are remembering the reasons that make the emirates attractive. The high income of the population, 84% of whom are expatriates, is one. Geography is another. The country is conveniently located between Europe and Asia, with two world-class airlines, Emirates and Etihad.

随着金融危机的记忆消退，很多公司正慢慢记住让阿联酋有如此吸引力的原因：一方面源于人口的高收入，其中84%是外籍人士。另一方面是阿联酋地处亚欧之间的地理位置，拥有两个世界级的航空公司—阿联酋航空和阿提哈德航空。

The UAE has done a lot to make life easy for firms, keeping paperwork to a minimum and moving much of it online. It comes 23rd out of 189 economies in the World Bank's latest ranking for the ease of doing business, the highest in a region that has seen a tumultuous few years. It takes only eight days to set up a business, three fewer than the average for the OECD, a club of mostly rich states. “Two years ago I'd have said the UAE does well relative to the region,” says Habib al-Mulla of the Dubai office of Baker 2 & McKenzie, a law firm. “Today I'd say it globally, too.”

阿联酋在为让企业生活方便上做了很多的事情，比如文书工作在线以保持最小化移动。 阿联酋在世界银行最新的189个经济体的商业排行榜上名列第23位，成为混乱的几年里在该地区中最高的。只需八天的时间，阿联酋就能够成立一个企业，用时平均比作为大多数富裕国家的俱乐部的经合的成员国少三倍。“两年前我会说阿联酋是一个相对的区域。”迪拜的一个法律公Baker & McKenzie的办公室人员Habib al-Mulla说，“而今天，我要说它一样是全球化的”

On April 13th the country's president, Sheikh Khalifa bin 3 Zayed al-Nahyan, signed into law a measure to promote smaller firms by giving them greater access to official contracts and loans. Yet businesspeople are disappointed by a draft of a broader companies law, which is expected to be sanctioned soon. The bill fails to solve the two big problems hampering 4 business in the emirates. First is the lack of a proper insolvency 5 regime that makes clear the duties of a firm's directors and the rights of its creditors 6 if it hits financial trouble. Despite its high overall rating, the UAE comes 101st on this score in the World Bank's ratings. Such minor 7 matters as being late paying a phone bill may be treated as criminal offences rather than civil matters; businessmen tell tales of colleagues going to the airport only to be told they are banned from travelling.

四月十三日，国家总统哈利法·本·扎耶德·阿勒纳哈扬，签署相关法律文件，一个重要举措即通过给予更多的官方合同贷款来促进小型企业的发展。然而，商人们对一个预计将很快批准的公司法草案普遍感到失望。货币未能解决的两大问题阻碍了阿联酋的业务发展。首先是一个一旦公司陷入财务困境，能够明确公司董事义务和债权人权利的合适的破产制度。尽管它的总评价较高，但这件事上阿联酋在世界银行的排行第101。诸如此类的小事，比如延期支付电话账单可能被视为刑事犯罪而非民事；比如商人告诉同事去机场，却被告知他们被禁止旅行的故事。

The second issue the proposed legislation leaves untouched is foreign ownership. International businesses that set up local limited-liability companies, as most do, can own only 49% of them, and thus must find trustworthy local partners. Dubai has created several “free” zones, where full foreign ownership is allowed, but the other emirates have been slow to follow. Analysts 8 reckon that full liberalisation of ownership would attract more businesses.

第二个是立法留下不变的外国所有权的问题。国际企业建立在阿联酋设立有限责任公司，无论做多少，都只能拥有公司百分之四十九的份额，因此，企业必须在当地寻找可靠的合作伙伴。迪拜创造了几个允许全外资所有权的“免费”地带，但其他酋长国照做的速度却很缓慢。分析师们认为，企业所有权的全面开放将会吸引更多的企业。

Investor 9 protection is another worry. The UAE has made progress: its courts tend to recognise the decisions of foreign arbitral tribunals. But enforcing contracts can be tricky 10, and the new law does not help much. Its biggest potential benefit is its lowering of the percentage that companies must float in an IPO from 55% to 30%. This should encourage more family-owned firms, hitherto worried about losing control, to raise capital to expand.

投资者保护是另一个迫在眉睫的问题。阿联酋已取得的进步：其法院倾向于承认外国仲裁法庭的决定。然而，合同的执行却是棘手的，并且新法律对此并没有多大的帮助。其最大的潜在的好处是它降低了公司IPO指数必须浮动在55%到30%之间百分比的。这将给更多一直担心因为提高资本扩大规模而使的公司失控的的家族企业以信心。

Further legislation on insolvency and foreign ownership is promised. But when things go well in the Gulf 11, as they now are, the authorities tend to lose interest in reform. Still, businessmen agree that the UAE's advantages far outweigh 12 its handicaps. Fadi Malas, the boss of Just Falafel, a local fast-food operator, says it is ideal not just as a place to do business but as a springboard for expanding across the region and beyond:plans are in hand for the chain, currently 55 outlets 13, to grow to more than 900 worldwide. Like the Lebanese-British Mr Malas, entrepreneurs choose the UAE over neighbouring countries not least because it has both electricity and stability—two things other places sorely lack.

当局在关于破产和外国所有权进一步的立法问题上给出了承诺。但当事情顺利发展的时候，当局却失去了改革的兴趣。总是如此，在商人们的心中，阿联酋的优点远远大于它给的障碍。一位当地的快餐店经营者，ust Falafel的老板Fadi Malas说，阿联酋不仅是一个做生意的好地方，还是一个可以扩展到整个地区甚至地区以外的跳板：他计划的产业链条是，目前55家店成长到超过全球900家的数量。像黎巴嫩籍英国人Malas先生一样，企业家们选择在众多邻国中选择阿联酋，至少是看中了其他国家和地区所缺乏的电力资源和稳定的环境。