制造业的转变

Manufacturing change

似乎全球正经历巨大的转变，这一转变比我们预期来的更快。燃油价格飙升、信贷危机的延续以及经济萧条持续导致集装箱贸易（尤其是跨太平洋集装箱贸易）处于低潮。

It feels like radical changes are coming, perhaps sooner than anticipated. The surging cost of fuel, the stubborn longevity of the credit crisis and continuing economic doldrums that have made for a down year in the container trades, especially on the trans-Pacific. All of this has encouraged talk from doomsayers about the end of globalization. That’s nonsense, of course. The logic and necessity behind outsourcing and offshoring is more important than ever in the global economy. But while what is happening in trade lanes and supply chains due to increasing fuel, labor and manufacturing costs is not the end of globalization, it could be the beginning of the end of globalization as we know it. That means a shift to shorter supply chains, slower times to cross oceans and distribute goods to save on fuel and reduce carbon footprints, relocated and alternate manufacturing locations, and increasing attention to locally produced food and goods.