华为

　　Interesting reading

　　有料

　　A Chinese industrial champion opens up a bit on its way to world domination

　　一家中国工业引领者走向全球的道路上，撩开了一点自己的面纱

　　Apr 20th 2011 | HONG KONG | from the print edition

　　ANOTHER annual report sent out in the season when countless companies worldwide are publishing them is at risk of being filed in the bin. Not so if the company is Huawei and the report is intended to make a company that reflects the best of China’s manufacturing prowess, while being a prime example of its secretiveness, seem normal.

　　值全球无数公司发表年度报告之季，又会有年报可能被扔进垃圾桶。不过，倘若是华为，倘若年报意在让这家显示中国最出色制造实力——而充当保密先锋——的公司看似平常，则另当其说。

　　The telecoms-equipment maker’s financial performance is impressive enough to make the report worth reading: revenues were 185 billion yuan ($27.4 billion), having grown by an annual average of 29% in the past four years. The growth rate for profits has been 56%. Having just passed Nokia and Siemens, Huawei looks on track to overtake Ericsson, the industry leader, this year.

　　这家电信设备制造商财务状况让人惊叹，报告值得一读：年营收1850亿元（274亿美元），四年年平均增长率达29%。利润增长率56%。刚刚赶超诺基亚和西门子的华为，似乎今年就有望追上行业老大爱立信。

　　But it faces some big impediments, perhaps the most important being the concerns of many governments, notably America’s and India’s, about a private company suspected of links to the security apparatus of a country said to be conducting sophisticated hacking. Because of such worries, Huawei’s efforts to buy American companies have been blocked and some sales have been lost.

　　但华为也面临几重阻碍，其中最严重的，可能是以美国和印度为代表的许多政府都担心，一家私企可能与中国安全机构有牵连，而中国据称又在实施精密的黑客攻击。因为上述担忧，华为希望购买几家美国公司都遭到拒绝，一些生意也随之东流。

　　The report is clearly an effort by Huawei to lay such concerns to rest. For the first time, its directors are named and given brief biographies. The rags-to-riches story of Ren Zhengfei, the chief executive, is fleshed out: the son of rural schoolteachers, he left the army in 1983, founding the company with savings of 21,000 yuan four years later. None of the other directors is said to have military ties. However, a somewhat conspicuous omission from the profile of Sun Yafang, the chairman, is that—according to a report in the Financial Times—she used to work for the Ministry of State Security. That three other directors are (according to the Chinese press) closely related to Mr Ren is also omitted.

　　显然，华为在通过年报努力消除这些担忧。公司董事会成员的姓名简历首次刊出，也将首席执行官任正非白手起家的故事栩栩道来：他生于一个农村教师之家，1983年退伍，四年后用21,000元积蓄创建公司。没有证据表明董事会其他成员与军队有联系。然而，董事长孙亚芳的简历却存在明显疏漏：据《金融时报》报道称，她曾在国家安全部任职。（据中国媒体称）与任正非关系紧密的其他三名董事会成员同样没有提及。

　　The report is a bit more forthcoming on the financial help Huawei gets from the state: plentiful cheap loans, some at interest rates of less than 1.7%, and a handy chunk of research grants. The audit of the firm’s accounts, by KPMG Huazhen, was unqualified, though the auditor noted that they did not contain all the information needed to meet international accounting standards for a full company report.

　　年报中更多看到的，是华为从政府得到的经济帮助：大量廉价贷款，有些利率不足1.7%，以及大量研究经费。毕马威华振为华为账目做出的审计并不合格，尽管审计员指出，这并不包含完整公司报告按国际会计标准所应有的全部信息。

　　Huawei still has some way to go before it satisfies the curiosity of foreign governments, competitors and investors. Even so, the information given in this year’s annual report represents a leap forward in openness for the company and for Chinese industry as a whole. In recent years Huawei has decisively dispelled any doubts that it can provide state-of-the-art communications equipment. The job of communicating about itself remains a work in progress.

　　华为要想消除外国政府、竞争者和投资商的疑虑，仍有待努力。即便如此，今年年报中披露的信息对公司、对中国工业整体而言，已经大有进步。近年来，华为已决然打消了外界的怀疑，证明自己可以提供顶尖水准的电信设施。而公司自己和外界的交流呢，仍在进行之中。