BEC商務(wù)英語(yǔ)閱讀材料：回眸一零

Fears that the Chinese economy is overheating mounted after official figures revealed that it grew faster than expected at the end of last year and inflation remained above target.

Southern Guangdong province, home to China’s biggest regional economy, added to concerns by announcing a 26 per cent rise in its minimum wage.

The national economy grew at an annual rate of 9.8 per cent in the final quarter of 2010, and by 10.3 per cent for the entire year.

Consumer price inflation fell to 4.6 per cent in December, after reaching a more than two-year high of 5.1 per cent the previous month.

But analysts said prices would accelerate strongly in the first quarter of this year, complicating efforts to cool the economy without triggering a sharp slowdown. For the whole year, consumer prices rose 3.3 per cent, above Beijing’s target of 3 per cent. Food prices were the main culprit, increasing 7.2 per cent.

“The growth figures will encourage Beijing to act more decisively on taming inflation, which means more interest rate hikes are just around the corner,” said Qu Hongbin, an economist at HSBC. The Shanghai Composite, China’s benchmark stock market index, dropped 2.9 per cent on Thursday amid fears of monetary tightening.

Inflation, labour shortages and a series of strikes in major industrial areas last year have led to minimum wage increases across China. This month the Beijing municipal government increased minimum wages by 21 per cent. Officials hope higher wages will increase domestic consumption and help China become less reliant on low-cost manufacturing, exports and investment for growth.

Geoffrey Crothall of the China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based advocacy group, said the wage hike might not be enough to ease the labour shortages in Guangdong province, which accounts for much of the global production of everything from mobile phones to sports shoes.

Faced with rising inflation, Beijing has raised the amount banks must hold on reserve seven times over the past year, and increased interest rates twice in the fourth quarter. These attempts to rein-in loose monetary conditions have only been partially successful.

To get around tighter lending quotas, Chinese banks moved trillions of renminbi in loans off their balance sheets last year, repackaging them as wealth management products.

On Thursday, the Chinese banking regulator ordered banks to bring an estimated Rmb1,660bn ($252bn) of off- balance sheet lending back on to their books this year. Government attempts to manage liquidity have been further complicated by non-bank lending, which authorities have great difficulty quantifying.

According to a central bank survey, total non-bank lending amounted to about Rmb240bn last year, equivalent to 5.6 per cent of total lending. But central bank officials told the Financial Times that the true scale of informal and underground lending was likely much larger.

Learning to learn:

第一段開(kāi)篇點(diǎn)題，只用了一句話，就說(shuō)明了下文要涉及的話題。見(jiàn)到這樣的長(zhǎng)句我們要學(xué)來(lái)為我所用哦，分析一下這句話的主干，請(qǐng)用Fears that…開(kāi)頭早一句話。

Language Points:

1. inflation 通貨膨脹 2. culprit 主要原因，罪魁禍?zhǔn)?/p>

Oral Topic:

What are the advantages and disadvantages of raising wages for your employees?

此題為BEC考試口試task2部分模擬

譯文參考：

各方對(duì)于中國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)正出現(xiàn)過(guò)熱現(xiàn)象的擔(dān)憂有所加劇。此前官方數(shù)據(jù)顯示，中國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)去年末的增速快于預(yù)期，而通脹仍高于目標(biāo)水平。

中國(guó)最大的經(jīng)濟(jì)省份——廣東省宣布將其最低工資標(biāo)準(zhǔn)提高26%，更是加劇了人們的憂慮。

中國(guó)經(jīng)濟(jì)2010年第四季度同比增長(zhǎng)9.8%，全年增長(zhǎng)10.3%。

12月消費(fèi)者價(jià)格指數(shù)(CPI)為4.6%，較11月5.1%的逾兩年高位有所回落。

但分析師們表示，中國(guó)消費(fèi)價(jià)格將在今年首季強(qiáng)勁加速上漲，使政府給經(jīng)濟(jì)降溫而又不至引發(fā)急劇減速的努力變得更加棘手。全年而言，消費(fèi)價(jià)格上漲3.3%，高于北京方面制定的3%的目標(biāo)水平。食品價(jià)格上漲7.2%，是推動(dòng)通脹上揚(yáng)的主要因素。

“這些增長(zhǎng)數(shù)據(jù)將鼓勵(lì)北京方面采取更果斷行動(dòng)制伏通脹，這意味著更多加息即將出臺(tái)，”匯豐(HSBC)經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家屈宏斌表示。中國(guó)基準(zhǔn)股指——上證綜指周四下滑2.9%，市場(chǎng)擔(dān)心中國(guó)將收緊貨幣政策。

通脹、勞動(dòng)力短缺和去年在幾個(gè)工業(yè)重鎮(zhèn)發(fā)生的一系列罷工，已導(dǎo)致中國(guó)各地紛紛提高最低工資標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。本月，北京市政府將最低工資提高21%。官員們希望，較高的工資將增加國(guó)內(nèi)消費(fèi)，有助于中國(guó)在增長(zhǎng)方面減輕對(duì)低成本制造、出口和投資的依賴。

位于中國(guó)香港的維權(quán)集團(tuán)中國(guó)勞工通訊(China Labour Bulletin)的杰弗里•克羅塞爾(Geoffrey Crothall)表示，加薪也許不足以緩解廣東省的勞動(dòng)力短缺。從手機(jī)到運(yùn)動(dòng)鞋，廣東省在許多產(chǎn)品的全球生產(chǎn)中占據(jù)了相當(dāng)大的比重。

面對(duì)不斷上升的通脹，北京方面過(guò)去一年已7次上調(diào)銀行存款準(zhǔn)備金率，并在第四季度兩次加息。這些措施旨在收斂寬松的貨幣政策條件，但僅在一定程度上取得了成功。

為了避開(kāi)收緊后的放貸指標(biāo)，中國(guó)各銀行去年將上萬(wàn)億元人民幣的貸款轉(zhuǎn)出自己的資產(chǎn)負(fù)債表，將其重新打包成理財(cái)產(chǎn)品。

周四，中國(guó)銀監(jiān)會(huì)責(zé)令各銀行今年將估計(jì)為1.66萬(wàn)億元人民幣(合2520億美元)的表外放貸轉(zhuǎn)回表內(nèi)。旨在管理流動(dòng)性的政府努力，還因非銀行放貸變得更為復(fù)雜，政府在量化非銀行放貸方面遇到極大困難。

根據(jù)中國(guó)央行的一項(xiàng)調(diào)查，去年非銀行放貸達(dá)到大約2400億元人民幣，相當(dāng)于總放貸額的5.6%。但央行官員對(duì)英國(guó)《金融時(shí)報(bào)》表示，非正式和地下放貸的真實(shí)規(guī)模可能要大得多。