Professional and business services

Unsung heroes 无名英雄

The British economy’s best-kept secret 英国经济长青之秘密

Jan 28th 2012 | from the print edition

THE court battle between Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky, which centres on years-ago dealings in a Russian oil company, has kept London’s high court busy for the past three months. It has provided amusement to Russian journalists, who are keen to peek inside the lives of two rich

men. And it has plumped British lawyers’ pockets by an unknown, but surely considerable, sum. Law seems to be defying wider economic trends: according to the latest official figures, turnover has grown by about 10% in the past five years. Two of the world’s top five firms are based in London, and last year alone the number of solicitors swelled by 3.5%. Law is a thriving export industry, with foreign earnings accounting for about of the total.

在过去的几个月里，伦敦的高等一直忙于罗曼·阿布拉莫维奇和鲍里斯·别列佐夫斯基之间的官司，此官司是关于几年前与一家石油公司的交易。这场官司为热衷于窥探两位富豪生活的记者提供了娱乐材料。这同时也使英国律师的腰包鼓起来 ，虽然不清楚律师费用的具体数目，但金额肯定是相当大的。法律行业似乎违背了更广泛的经济趋势：根据最新官方数据显示，在过去的5年中，法律行业营业额增长了约10%。世界五家顶级公司中有两家以伦敦为基地，并且仅去年执业律师的数量就增加3.5%。可见，法律行业是一个蒸蒸日上的出口产业，其赚取的外汇收入约占总外汇收入的25%。

Talk of rebalancing the economy away from harmful, ethereal financial service and back to honest manufacturing tends to overlook a large, thriving business sector that falls roughly between the two. Taken together, professional services

(lawyers, accountants, architects and so on) and business services (anything from IT and call centres to security, training and catering) are worth 17% of the economy. That compares with 11% each for manufacturing and retailing, and 10% for financial services. They generate huge foreign sales, too. In 2009 the Treasury estimated that professional services alone accounted for half of Britain’s annual services exports. Britain was the clear European leader in this respect. 谈及重整经济，把经济从不利的，无形的金融服务重新转回到实造企业。这往往会让一个巨大而景气的商业部门的发展滑落在二者之间。所有综合起来，专业服务（律师，会计，建筑师等等）和商业服务（所有的，从信息技术和呼叫中心到安全，培训，餐饮）占到整个经济的17%，相当于制造业和零售业的11%，金融服务的10%。同样，它们也能产生大量的出口贸易。在2009年，据财政部估计，单就专业服务这一项就达到了英国年度服务出口贸易的一半。在这方面，英国无疑是欧洲的老大。

Lawyers, accountants, management consultants and other professional-services grunts are drawn to London partly for the same reasons financial-services firms cluster there—the global ubiquity of English and a time zone midway between the rich old world and emerging Asia. Partly, they are

attracted to those financial-services outfits, which create business for them. Earlier this month Aon, an American insurance company, said it was moving its head office to London from Chicago. Its main reason was to be closer to its growing number of clients in Asia, but London’s range of professional services was part of the attraction.

律师，会计师，管理咨询顾问以及其他专业服务人员来到伦敦，部分都因着相同的理由，那就是金融服务企业在伦敦集群，并且英语普及全球，还有处于富裕的古老世界和新兴亚洲经济体之间的时区，这都为他们创造了商业机会。本月初，一家美国保险公司——安怡，透露说其公司已经把总部从芝加哥搬到了伦敦，搬迁最主要的原因是想更靠近日益增长的亚洲客户，而伦敦一系列的专业服务则是受到吸引的部分原因。 The less glamorous business-services sector is a child of the 1980s. “The Thatcher era got it going,” says Mark Fox, who runs the Business Services Association. The then-prime minister’s drive to contract out public-sector tasks to the private sector laid the foundations for firms taking over such services as school and hospital meals, buildings maintenance and even staff training. One leading outsource firm, Capita, still depends largely on the British public sector. But others have moved into new areas and international markets.

第二景气的商业服务部门在80年代还只是个处在成长期的孩子。经管着商业服务协会的马克·福克斯说：“是撒切尔时推动了其向前发展”。当时的首相把合约从公共部门任务转移到私营部门，从而为掌握这些服务（如学校和医院的伙食，建筑维修，甚至是员工培训）的企业奠定一个良好的基础。一家领先的外包企业Capita，仍然在较大程度上依赖英国公共部门。但其他公司已经转向新领域和国际市场。

Serco, for example, runs private prisons in Britain as well as the Dubai metro and American military field hospitals. Balfour Beatty became known as a construction firm but now calls itself an infrastructure company, investing in transport systems and providing professional and support services in many markets including America, and the Middle East. G4S’s activities range from delivering cash to banks to creating security systems for buildings and fire protection systems for America’s space agency, NASA. Many of these firms benefit from long experience of public-private partnerships, which were pioneered in Britain (and often have a poor reputation there) but have spread to other countries. Professionals, versed in the complex contracts these partnerships often involve, follow in their wake. In Budapest, Kiev or Moscow you will come across London lawyers who have seen it all before. Many have even learned local

languages in pursuit of lucrative fees.

信佳公司，在英国经营着私营监狱，还有迪拜地铁和美事野战医院。鲍佛·贝蒂公司作为建筑企业而闻名，但是现在却称自己为基础设施公司，投资于运输系统，并在很多市场如美国，和中东提供专业支持服务。这些公司中的大多数都从与公共部门与私营企业的过往合作中得到过好处。虽是英国率先提出的（但同样也经常声名狼藉），并且也传播到了其他国家。专业人员，会精通于这些合作关系中常涉及到的复杂合同。在布达佩斯，基辅或者莫斯科，你可能会“偶遇”律师们此前烂熟于心伦敦。很多律师都会为了可观的费用而学习当地语言。 The professional and business-services firms share some of the City’s worries about being based in and around London. They fret about lack of airport capacity for direct flights to new markets, such as inland China.They gripe about a high top rate of income tax and restrictive immigration policies. They face growing competition from business centres in Asia and the Middle East. But at least they don’t have to deal with politicians breathing down their necks and scrutinising their bosses’ pay.

专业和商业服务企业都有共享一些对基于伦敦和伦敦周边城市的担忧，他们为当地机场机场没有直达飞机到达新市场，比如中国内陆而焦虑不已。同时，他们也埋怨过高的所得税税率和性移民。他们面临

着来自亚洲和中东商业中心日益增长的竞争。但是至少，他们不必担心项上人头被政客们砍掉或者核查他们老板支付的工资。

from the print edition | Britain