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考研英语阅读理解提分没有捷径,只有通过多阅读多做题才能够提高阅读速度和把握做题的技巧。新东方在线编辑奉上考研英语报刊文章阅读及剖析,希望备战2015年的考生能够不断拓展知识面,理论结合实践,提升阅读理解能力。
考研英语报刊文章阅读及剖析(13)
How does the country’s economy compare with those of the EU?
SOME of the concerns surrounding Turkey’s application to join the European
Union, to be voted on by the EU’s Council of Ministers on December 17th, are
economic-in particular, the country’s relative poverty. Its GDP per head is less
than a third of the average for the 15 pre-2004 members of the EU. But it is not
far off that of one of the ten new members which joined on May 1st 2004
(Latvia), and it is much the same as those of two countries, Bulgaria and
Romania, which this week concluded accession talks with the EU that could make
them full members on January 1st 2007.
Furthermore, the country’s recent economic progress has been, according to
Donald Johnston, the secretary-general of the OECD, "stunning". GDP in the
second quarter of the year was 13.4% higher than a year earlier, a rate of
growth that no EU country comes close to matching. Turkey’s inflation rate has
just fallen into single figures for the first time since 1972, and this week the
country reached agreement with the IMF on a new three-year, $10 billion economic
programme that will, according to the IMF’s managing director, Rodrigo Rato,
"help Turkey... reduce inflation toward European levels, and enhance the
economy’s resilience".
Resilience has not historically been the country’s economic strong point.
As recently as 2001, GDP fell by over 7%. It fell by more than 5% in 1994, and
by just under 5% in 1999. Indeed, throughout the 1990s growth oscillated like an
electrocardiogram recording a violent heart attack. This irregularity has been
one of the main reasons (along with red tape and corruption) why the country has
failed dismally to attract much-needed foreign direct investment. Its stock of
such investment (as a percentage of GDP) is lower now than it was in the 1980s,
and annual inflows have scarcely ever reached $1 billion (whereas Ireland
attracted over $25 billion in 2003, as did Brazil in every year from 1998 to
2000).
One deterrent to foreign investors is due to disappear on January 1st 2005.
On that day, Turkey will take away the right of virtually every one of its
citizens to call themselves a millionaire. Six noughts will be removed from the
face value of the lira; one unit of the local currency will henceforth be worth
what 1m are now-ie, about ?0.53 ($0.70). Goods will have to be priced in both
the new and old lira for the whole of the year, but foreign bankers and
investors can begin to look forward to a time in Turkey when they will no longer
have to juggle mentally with indeterminate strings of zeros.
注(1):本文选自Economist;12/18/2004, p115-115, 2/5p;
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