时间:2019-01-12 作者:英语课 分类:2010年VOA慢速英语(十二)月


英语课

This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.


Commodities are basic materials that are used and traded worldwide. The price of commodities helps determine how much a business can charge for a product and the profit it can make. Commodity prices have reached a two-year high since falling sharply during the world financial crisis.


Hard commodities are materials like iron ore, oil and gold. Agricultural products are soft commodities. These include wheat, cotton and rice.


Economic measures show the world economy is recovering unevenly 1. China and India, for example, have reported strong growth in manufacturing. Developed nations have had slower growth.


John James is a business professor at Pace University in New York State. He says demand in developing economies can push up prices for commodities like oil and iron ore used for making steel. But, he says, changing currency values can also influence prices.


JOHN JAMES: “The spike 2 in the price of commodities [is] a reflection of the instability of both the euro and the dollar and the best example of that, of course, is gold.”



A buyer in Jammu, India chooses gold jewelry 3. Gold is commodity traded worldwide and in futures 4 markets


Gold prices have reached record levels in recent months. That means gold dealers 5 must pay more for the commodity now than they did only a year ago. That affects current prices.


Not surprisingly, manufacturers want some control over the prices they pay for commodities. Futures contracts are agreements between a buyer and a seller to exchange something at a set price at some time in the future. These contracts let buyers lock in a price for basic materials.


But some traders in futures markets only want to make a profit. They buy or sell contracts depending on the direction they believe prices will go. These speculators get blamed when prices rise, or fall, too quickly.


The United States, Germany and France are looking into ways to limit this kind of trading.


Some experts say exporting commodities is not a good path to long-term economic growth. The United Nations recently reported that the least developed countries must change their economies to provide good incomes for their citizens.


Supachai Panitchpakdi leads the UN development group UNCTAD. He says the least developed countries need to cut dependence 6 on commodities and manufacture products for export. He says only this will let them gain from world trade.


And that’s the VOA Special English Economics Report, written by Mario Ritter. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and iTunes at VOA Learning English. I’m Steve Ember.


 



adv.不均匀的
  • Fuel resources are very unevenly distributed. 燃料资源分布很不均匀。
  • The cloth is dyed unevenly. 布染花了。
n.长钉,钉鞋;v.以大钉钉牢,使...失效
  • The spike pierced the receipts and held them in order.那个钉子穿过那些收据并使之按顺序排列。
  • They'll do anything to spike the guns of the opposition.他们会使出各种手段来挫败对手。
n.(jewllery)(总称)珠宝
  • The burglars walked off with all my jewelry.夜盗偷走了我的全部珠宝。
  • Jewelry and lace are mostly feminine belongings.珠宝和花边多数是女性用品。
n.期货,期货交易
  • He continued his operations in cotton futures.他继续进行棉花期货交易。
  • Cotton futures are selling at high prices.棉花期货交易的卖价是很高的。
n.商人( dealer的名词复数 );贩毒者;毒品贩子;发牌者
  • There was fast bidding between private collectors and dealers. 私人收藏家和交易商急速竞相喊价。
  • The police were corrupt and were operating in collusion with the drug dealers. 警察腐败,与那伙毒品贩子内外勾结。
n.依靠,依赖;信任,信赖;隶属
  • Doctors keep trying to break her dependence of the drug.医生们尽力使她戒除毒瘾。
  • He was freed from financial dependence on his parents.他在经济上摆脱了对父母的依赖。
学英语单词
-s
5'-Deoxyadenosyl-B12
acid fast red
Aegerita
albumin milk
almeida pilosa
amoralists
amphoteric ion-exchangeresin
anti-impact gear
batouti
blast furnace smelting
bunss
cabinetmaker
cauliflora
CD Video
Churumuco
COBOL transaction program
collapsible keel block
corecipients
dihydropyrimidinase
direct exporttrade
draw-
drip-drying
escrowing
esterifiable
Ethydan
ethyl cyanamide
filtered signal
fire bricks
flamdoodle
Florence crystals
foam solution
folded potential
forestry production statistics
fully arisen sea
general fixed assets group of accounts
genus Hamamelis
genus irenas
Grecian nose
groaners
Guengant
Haskins
hcb
ill-humo(u)redly
in conjunction with
input/output stream control
inseminating catheter
insured risk
joint buying office
Kentish fire
lande's g factor
Lincolnshire
look-at-me signal
magon
managed economies
merphenyl
metropolitan broadband network
mobile control room
Muncimir
national switching network
network for arc welding
non-metered tap
not the done thing
nuclei cochleares
Oetinghausen
pastures newer pastures
Pelargonium limoneum
pen lid
penetration method
permeably
Ping Pong buffer
powerful radio-frequency cable
pump for sludge tank
punctuation space
Quinalspan
redalder
reduced flange
regulating error
requirement for tax exemption
self-skill
shape straighten
shelf front
ST_including-and-excluding_covering-and-adding-layers
suele
taper-reamer
taste acuity
technico-
telecommunication route
throw up one's hat
transiliac
travel card
triatic
uncountry
variation in testing temperature
vibroplatform
Villaputzu
Virtual File Allocation Table
vision distance
well-illuminated
what are we waiting for
yester-morrows
z transform inverse