【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障12系列】【12-14】经管

风随心动01 · 发表于 2013-1-2 20:50:56

【速度 1】 World Bank Praises Burundi’s Regulatory Reforms William Eagle December 31, 2012 The World Bank says Burundi has made strides in reducing regulation and improving its business climate. The East African country ranks fifth among economies that improved the most in the bank’s annual study of economic reforms, called Doing Business 2013. The first four top improvers are Poland, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The survey evaluates governments according to their ability to ease stumbling blocks in creating and operating businesses. Among the hurdles are dealing with construction permits, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes and facilitating cross-border trade. Of the 185 countries surveyed Burundi ranks159th, 13 places higher than last year. In last place is Central African Republic. The report shows progress in three categories: starting a business, dealing with construction permits and registering property. One Stop Shop It shows that in Burundi, it used to take about eight days to begin a business, compared to an average of 34 days for the rest of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. That compares to 32 days for Kenya, 58 for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 26 for Tanzania and three for Rwanda. But Rachidi Radji, the World Bank’s country manager for Burundi, said it takes even less time today. "One concrete, well-known and appreciated thing around here is what they call a One Stop Shop," he says. "What that means is that today, you can actually open a business in 24 hours, compared to 25-40 days as in the past. Thanks to the One Stop Shop, Burundi has eliminated requirements to have company documents notarized, to have information on new companies published in a journal and to register new companies with the Ministry of Trade and Industry. (278) 【速度 2】 Only four steps are required to register a business, half the number needed on average by the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. They include submitting all documents; obtaining a registration certificate; and registering the company with the Department of Work Inspection in the Ministry of Labor, and the National Institute for Social Security. It also includes making a company seal needed by some banks to issue loans. "In the past," says Radji, "it was a nightmare. People said it was too complicated [to start a new business]. If you are a foreign company, you needed a local guide to help you get [through the process, to tell you] which minister you had to go to and so on. Today, you have a unique place where people just get together, the rules of the game are clear. In the past, [registration] cost you roughly 200 dollars. Today the cost average is 45 dollars. The Doing Business report also cites advances in addressing another issue that can stifle investment: the time needed to issue construction permits. The report measures the days and procedures required by a company to build a warehouse, connect it to basic utilities and register the property. To solve the problem, Burundi has made it easier to get a permit by eliminating a clearance from the Ministry of Health and reducing the cost of a required geotechnical study. And it has cut the number of procedures for obtaining a permit from 24 to 21and the number of days needed from 137 to 99. The government has also made it easier to register property, which is needed as collateral for loans. Investors now need only 64 days to register, compared to 94 previously. The World Bank says it’s now easier to transfer property because of a new time limit on processing transfer requests. As a result of the reforms, the report finds that it’s easier to register property in Burundi than in neighboring Central African Republic, Tanzania and Kenya. But it finds that registration is not as fast as in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. (346) 【速度 3】 World Bank partnership The World Bank is helping the reform effort with the Burundi Investment Climate Program, which works with the government to meet the needs of the business community and simplify taxes for small and medium enterprises. It’s also helping harmonize Burundi’s trade rules and regulations with those of the East African Community, which includes Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. "Burundi is a very small country," says Radji. "The only way for it to develop will be to be connected internationally starting with the East African Community, which is a quite sizeable market. Beyond that, it can benefit by joining other bilateral trade arrangements. But for the time being, the emphasis has first of all been on laying the foundation (for growth and investment), taking on regional and then more broadly international opportunities. Not all reviews of Burundi’s reform efforts are positive. Allegations of corruption Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index rated it near the bottom of 174 countries in terms of corruption. It placed Burundi ahead of Chad, Sudan and Somali, but behind Zimbabwe, DRC, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. The State Department’s Investment Climate Statement for 2012 says the president of Burundi has taken the lead in fighting corruption as part of his strategy for good governance. He established three units: a special Anticorruption Brigade, an Anticorruption Court and a Court of Auditors. Burundi is also a signatory to the UN Anti-Corruption Convention and the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery and is part of the East African Anti-Corruption Authority. But the State Department says an under sourced civil service and police force means laws and regulations prohibiting corrupt practices are rarely enforced. It says it’s too early to tell how successful the government’s anti-corruption program will be. However, it says no foreign firms have lodged complaints against the Burundian government under any of these agreements. And no major U.S. firms have cited corruption as an obstacle to direct investment. Rashidi of the World Bank says his organization’s programs are focusing on corruption and good governance. He compares economic reform, which include the fight against corruption, to a marathon. Despite any setbacks, he said the runner must keep going and going. (362) 【速度 4】 American Intelligence Report Predicts China will be World’s Leading Economic Power by 2030 A new American intelligence report this week predicted Asia's economic power rising in the coming years. The report says that by the year 2030, the United States will no longer be the superpower it is today. It says that no nation will have that kind of influence, with power instead redirected to coalitions between countries. The report comes from the National Intelligence Council of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The document was researched and written by experts from outside the government. They say the findings are meant to help policymakers in their long-term planning on major issues. The report says the world will look different by 2030. The economy in Asia will be larger than that of North America and Europe combined. China will have the largest economy in the world. And the Chinese economy will be 140 percent greater than Japan's economy. Some observers say China needs to take steps before it can become the world's biggest economy. Patrick Chovanec is with Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management in Beijing. He believes that several things could affect the country's economic growth. "China's growth is extremely resource dependent and those resources are becoming scarcer and scarcer. In particular, water, in northern China, there is a growing scarcity of water, and that along with other resource constraints might limit China's prospects of going forward." Patrick Chovanec says the average age in China is rising because of the country's one-child policy. He says there are concerns China will grow old before it is wealthy enough to support its growing population. (262) 【速度 5】 The new report also says the world economy will be more dependent on the health of developing countries, instead of the West. It says there will be a higher demand on resources as the world's population expands from seven-point-one billion today to eight billion people. The report says nearly half of the population will live in areas with severe water issues. It says limited water resources and farmland could increase the risk of conflict in parts of Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Experts are predicting that the United States could become more active in settling disputes in the future. As a mediator, America could work to prevent what the report calls violence created from insecurity in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Robert Kagan is with the Brookings Institution in Washington. "What the world is looking for from the United States - and it's not the world - individual states look for protection, they look - in some cases - for the ability to organize. I mean if you take the Syria issue which is before us right now, what people are waiting for is for the United States to step up and start pulling everyone together. And what's been missing has been the United States playing that role." The writers of the report say their findings are not meant to predict the future, but instead provide a framework for thinking about possible futures. The report adds that the best world possible would exist if the United States and China work together and lead international cooperation.（258） 【越障】 Monetary policy         What's moving Japanese markets? POLITICAL change in Japan is spurring hope among many economic writers that a dramatic change in Japanese monetary policy might put many old theories to the test, and bring the Japanese economy out of stagnation at last. But Tim Duy reckons that western journalists are missing the real story of the Japanese monetary rethink: “In my opinion, a higher inflation target by the Bank of Japan is not particularly interesting. After all, the Bank of Japan can't hit the current "goal" of 1 percent inflation. I don't have much faith that renaming the "goal" a "target" and increasing it to 2 percent will be like waving a magic wand. But something much more significant is afoot - the possibility of explicit cooperation, albeit perhaps forced cooperation, between fiscal and monetary authorities. The loss of the Bank of Japan's independence to force the direct monetization of deficit spending is the real story.” Mr Duy makes his point apropos of a recent Floyd Norris piece. Mr. Norris looks at the state of play in Japan in light of a 2002 speech by then-Fed-governor Ben Bernanke, in which he notably argued that, "under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation". Mr. Duy figures that Mr. Bernanke was careful in the speech to specify that governments rather than simply central banks have this power. Mr. Bernanke would seem to be somewhat sceptical of the ability of a central bank to reflate an economy all on its own when at the zero lower bound, Mr. Duy suggests. That may also be why the chairman seems so desperate to convince Congress not to sock the American economy with a pile of tax hikes and spending cuts. I think Mr. Duy may be mistaken, about the importance of the Japanese news and the ability of the Bank of Japan to boost growth on its own, though not necessarily about Mr. Bernanke's policy views. First, a change in policy to a higher inflation target could very well matter a lot. Mr. Duy is right that the Bank of Japan has not managed even 1% inflation in recent years, but that could easily be interpreted as a matter of the Bank's preference. It's worth remembering that the Bank of Japan, after battling deflation for nearly a decade, raised interest rates in 2006 when it appeared that year-on-year core CPI might be on track to hit 1%. The Bank's actions strongly suggest that while it may not wish to see further deflation, it also isn't interested in meaningfully positive inflation. Still, that suggests that when Bank of Japan actions conflict with Bank words, bet on the actions. If that's correct, a change in target won't be sufficient to raise inflation unless the Bank couples it with action to give the change credibility. So, could the Bank of Japan, given new political encouragement, take action to hit a higher inflation target all on its own, or is the real news that the Japanese government is prepared to combine fiscal and monetary stimulus? One can read a pretty good case that the Bank of Japan can do the job alone in the form of a speech given by...Ben Bernanke, only in 1999, before he joined the Federal Reserve. In that speech Mr. Bernanke does say that cooperation with fiscal authorities—as in the famous "helicopter drop" or money-financed tax cut—could boost demand at the zero lower bound. But he also argues clearly and explicitly that that would almost certainly be unnecessary. The Bank of Japan could handle things on its own by setting a high inflation target and participating aggressively in the foreign-exchange market. Mr. Bernanke mentions and dismisses arguments that this would violate legal restrictions or run into political constraints. He then notes: “The important question, of course, is whether a determined Bank of Japan would be able to depreciate the yen. I am not aware of any previous historical episode, including the periods of very low interest rates of the 1930s, in which a central bank has been unable to devalue its currency. Be that as it may, there are those who claim that the BOJ is impotent to affect the exchange rate... To rebut this view, one can apply a reductio ad absurdum argument, based on my earlier observation that money issuance must affect prices , else printing money will create infinite purchasing power. Suppose the Bank of Japan prints yen and uses them to acquire foreign assets. If the yen did not depreciate as a result, and if there were no reciprocal demand for Japanese goods or assets (which would drive up domestic prices), what in principle would prevent the BOJ from acquiring infinite quantities of foreign assets, leaving foreigners nothing to hold but idle yen balances? Obviously this will not happen in equilibrium. One reason it will not happen is the principle of portfolio balance: Because yen balances are not perfect substitutes for all other types of real and financial assets, foreigners will not greatly increase their holdings of yen unless the yen depreciates, increasing the expected return on yen assets. It 21 might be objected that the necessary interventions would be large. Although I doubt it, they might be; that is an empirical question. However, the larger the intervention that is required, the greater the associated increase in the BOJ’s foreign reserves, which doesn’t seem such a bad outcome.” In his 2002 speech, Mr. Bernanke briefly mentions the depreciation approach, but he gives it less priority and discusses it much more cautiously. There are two good reasons for this. One is that the context changes, from Japan to America, and because trade is less important to America depreciation is a less powerful tool. The other is that the dollar plays a different role in international markets than any other currency, and markets are extremely sensitive to policymaker comments which makes policymakers correspondingly more conservative in discussing prospects for a shift in dollar policy. Larry Ball discusses additional reasons why foreign-exchange intervention is dropped entirely as a potential tool in later Bernanke speeches; Mr. Bernanke may have changed his mind since 2003, but that doesn't mean he's right now and was wrong then. His 1999 logic continues to look sound. And it can be extended. Japan has hardly been a model of fiscal discipline up to this point, and despite substantial Bank of Japan purchases of government debt there remains quite a large, and growing, stock of Japanese sovereign debt outstanding. In 2012, Japan ran a budget deficit of about 10% of GDP, raising the ratio of gross debt to GDP to near 240%. The Bank can therefore quite easily pursue quasi-fiscal expansion without any cooperation from the government at all. It defies belief that inflation expectations could remain near zero if the Bank matched an increased inflation target with a commitment to buy debt in bulk until it was achieved. The portfolio-balance effects mentioned in the quote above would likewise come into play; as the Bank of Japan took ever more of the holdings of debt securities from insurance companies and pension funds, those funds would find it necessary to go out and obtain other assets. Knock-on purchases would raise asset prices, growth expectations, and the price level. If the Bank somehow managed to accumulate the entire stock of Japanese debt without generating any effect on the price level there should then be a hefty stimulative effect from the reduction in future expected taxes. In the strange, strange world in which monetisation of the entirety of so large a government debt had no effect on prices, one suspects that fiscal-monetary cooperation would hardly do any better. A higher inflation target alone might not change anything in Japan. A higher inflation target plus the threat of a loss of independence if the Bank of Japan doesn't take the target seriously could change everything. But I think Mr Bernanke had it right in 1999; Japan has never needed fiscal-policy help to solve its deflationary woes. (1351)

miffyhui · 发表于 2013-1-2 20:52:47

占~~

yangreat · 发表于 2013-1-2 20:59:46

感谢！

forazure · 发表于 2013-1-2 22:50:00

好早，谢谢楼主~~~ 占楼

2013-01-04

【每日阅读训练第四期——速度越障12系列】【12-14】经管

[出勤次数：24(14 of S12) 连续出勤次数：9]
Speed:
1. Word: 278 Time: 2’20”
Burundimade progress in facilitating business in 2012 and thus awarded by world bank.
2. Word: 346 Time: 2’18”
Severalsteps were taken to make opening business easier.
3. Word: 362 Time: 2’51”
Anticorruptionmethods and their efficacy are still at issue.
4. Word: 262 Time: 2’01
Itis alleged that China will be the leading economy in 2030, however we shouldtake precautions against resource scarcity and growing old.
5. Word: 258 Time: 2’03”
The writers ofthe report say their findings are not meant to predict the future, but insteadprovide a framework for thinking about possible futures. The report adds thatthe best world possible would exist if the United States and China worktogether and lead international cooperation.

Obstacle:
Word: 1351 Time:11’55”
Main Idea: Mr.B was right but wrong now. Ahigher inflation target plus the threat of a loss of independence if the Bankof Japan doesn't take the target seriously could change everything.
Author'sattitude: N

xlraul · 发表于 2013-1-2 23:08:44

我勒个去啊！原来每日训练的帖子在这儿啊，我等了两天... 以为大家过节去了

铁板神猴 · 发表于 2013-1-2 23:38:45

我勒个去啊！原来每日训练的帖子在这儿啊，我等了两天... 以为大家过节去了

-- by 会员 xlraul (2013/1/2 23:08:44)

八成是盯着我的总帖汇总了吧

frankiepn · 发表于 2013-1-3 01:48:25

1'33
2'03
2'32
1'23
1'19
obstacle
7'56

kevinlaci · 发表于 2013-1-3 11:44:19

1'27
1'22
1'40
0'55
0'59
6'51

zycooper · 发表于 2013-1-3 15:39:21

1, 278words
1:32
there is a meeting about economic and present a new item called one stop shop

2, 346
1:47
this passage present some advanced of the item and the problems that the one stop shop

solved

3, 362
2:04
this passage talks about the confidence and ways to fight with corruption

4, 262
1:21
a report imagined a picture of the economy of this world by 2030. Obviously China gonna be

the biggest economic nation but china still have some steps to achieve that goal, happy for

that.

5 258
1:07
by 2030 the challenges the world gonna face such as lack of resource.and the south asia

will be strong in econemic.American will face some problems. C and A should hold together

that world will best exist

obstacle 1351

9:00

alun1987 · 发表于 2013-1-4 13:10:47

1'24
1'38
2'12
1'10
1'12

越障：（看得脑仁疼~~~~

）
Common opinion: Monetary policy change(higher inflation target) by BOJ may results in economc recovery

Duy's opinion: BOJ cannot achieve a higher inflation target, since it has not even managed a 1% inflation rate in recent years. It loses the independence and is powerless
>>Duy then cites part of Bernanke's speech in 2002 to support his opinion: it is the government that has the power to drive high spending and positive inflation

Author's opinion: Duy is mistaken
>>Monetary policy change does matter, it can do the job alone. The fact that BOJ has not managed a 1% inflation could be explained by its preference——the bank desires neither deflation nor positive inflation
>>Bernanke also made a speech in 1999 in which he stated that BOJ can handle the situation on its own
>>Duy failed to consider the reasons behind such a plausible change in priority of Bernanke's speech in 2002 compared to that in 1999 :
>>>change in topic content & differences between US dollars and other currencies

Some further extention about the discussion（晕了）

Conclusion:
>>monetary policy change may change nothing
>>monetary policy change + a threat of loss in independence could change everything
>>But the arthor think that Bernanke is right: Japan has never needed fiscal policy as a solution to deflation.

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