Ф. Р. Мирзоева

English for Students of Economics.
Английский язык для студентов экономических специальностей

Учебное пособие

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ebooks@prospekt.org

Информация о книге

УДК 811.111(075.8)

ББК 81.2Англ-923

М63

Автор:
Мирзоева Ф. Р., кандидат педагогических наук, доцент кафедры английского языка вечернего отделения.

Рецензенты:
Васьбиева Д. Г., кандидат экономических наук, доцент Департамента английского языка и профессиональной коммуникации Финансового университета при Правительстве РФ;
Щербакова О. Ю., кандидат филологических наук, профессор кафедры гуманитарных дисциплин и иностранных языков Российского университета кооперации.

Учебное пособие предназначено для использования как в магистратуре и аспирантуре экономических специальностей, так и для широкого круга лиц, изучающих экономику и английский язык. Цель данного пособия – дальнейшее развитие навыков чтения и перевода литературы по специальности, а также развитие умений речевого профессионально-ориентированного общения в рамках тематики, предусмотренной программой по иностранному языку для магистров и аспирантов, обучающихся по направлениям подготовки «Международная экономика», «Международный бизнес».

В пособие вошли информативные тексты и аутентичные статьи профессиональной направленности из современных англоязычных изданий.

УДК 811.111(075.8)

ББК 81.2Англ-923

© Мирзоева Ф. Р., 2021

© Дипломатическая академия МИД России, 2021

ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ

Бурное развитие современного информационного пространства в процессе глобализации, а также не менее динамичное развитие интеграционных процессов буквально во всех областях жизни общества, диктуют необходимость изучения иностранных языков для использования в профессиональной сфере.

Данное учебное пособие поможет ознакомиться с современными экономическими реалиями и освоить лексику и терминологию, обсуждая и изучая специальную литературу по экономической проблематике. Пособие «English for students of Economics» предназначено для магистров и аспирантов экономических специальностей, общая языковая компетенция которых соответствует уровням В2-С1.

Основные задачи пособия:

• совершенствование навыков чтения оригинальной литературы по специальности;

• расширение и закрепление лексической базы по специальности;

• формирование и развитие навыков реферирования, аннотирования и компрессии.

Пособие построено на оригинальных статьях по экономике из солидных англоязычных изданий и интернет-­ресурсов, что позволяет ознакомить магистров и аспирантов со спецификой профессионального, социального и культурного контекста.

Учебное пособие содержит 5 разделов (Units) и построено по тематическому принципу, соответствующему разделам рабочей программы «Английский язык профессиональной деятельности» для направления подготовки Экономика – 38.03.01 Дипломатической академии МИД России.

Разделы имеют единую структуру: работе над текстами предшествует вводная часть – Pre-reading activity. Она содержит важные для понимания текстов сведения, а также задания, включающие новую лексику и предваряющие вопросы. В части Reading and Comprehension следуют тексты или статьи из газет и журналов по экономике и финансам. Наличие нескольких близких по тематике статей позволяет рассмотреть основную тему раздела с различных углов. Более того, в конце каждой главы имеются статьи для дополнительного чтения c заданиями (Supplementary Reading), что облегчает отбор учебного материала для магистров и аспирантов с различным уровнем подготовки. Языковой материал и терминологическая лексика из текстов активизируется с помощью системы разнообразных упражнений (задания на определение верных/неверных утверждений; поиск синонимов; восстановление словосочетаний, проблемные вопросы, упражнения с пропусками и т. п.), направленных на понимание и контроль содержания текстов, а также на стимулирование обсуждения проблем в пределах представленной тематики. Ко многим заданиям предлагаются речевые формулы, организованные по различным коммуникативным намерениям (согласие-­несогласие; возражение; уточнение и т. п.). За ними следуют задания, направленные на выработку навыка комментирования с последующим письменным реферированием статьи. Подобные упражнения позволяют освоить методику поиска информации, совершенствовать приемы реферирования и аннотирования текстов профессиональной направленности, работы над научным исследованием и представлением его в виде презентации или доклада.

Блоки Essay Writing и Making Presentation, представленные в конце разделов, развивают критическое осмысление прочитанных статей, обогащают словарный запас и фоновые знания, подводя итог каждому разделу. Заключительные задания носят творческий, коммуникативный характер и обеспечивают базу лексически грамотного, профессионального взаимодействия, необходимого для экономиста-­международника. В конце учебного пособия, в разделах Appendix (1 и 2), магистры и аспиранты найдут дополнительные материалы по структурным и языковым средствам оформления реферирования, аннотирования, презентаций, эссе.

В целом, в ходе работы с учебником преподавателю предоставляется возможность отработать все элементы, составляющие основу общепрофессиональных и профессиональных компетенций экономиста-­международника.

Unit 1.
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ORGANIZATIONS AND INSTITUTIONS

International Economic Organizations play a vital role in the global economy. The most famous include the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization which were either established or conceived at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944. Since then numerous other regional organizations have been formed including several led by China and Russia in recent years. The three major international economic organizations are the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO emerged out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1995; it is an arrangement across countries that serves as a forum for negotiations on trading rules as well as a mechanism for dispute settlements in trade issues. By contrast, the World Bank and IMF deal with their member countries one at a time. They have little influence with industrial countries but can affect developing countries during times of economic crisis and when those countries seek additional foreign exchange resources. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IRBD or World Bank hereafter) are among the most well-known and criticized international organizations primarily because of the influence they exert over member countries’ economic choices. Both organizations were created at the end of World War II and have played a critical role in the evolution of the global economic and financial system.

PRE-READING ACTIVITY

Task 1.1. Before you read.

Work in pairs or groups and discuss the questions. Use the following expressions to present your opinion: In my experience… As far as I’m concerned… Speaking for myself… In my opinion…

1. What are the aims of international economic organizations?

2. Сan you think of any group(s) of countries associated with WTO, IMF, which enjoy membership?

3. Do you think IMF has traditionally been a generous institution in spreading economic development?

4. How open is the IMF to outside scrutiny and participation?

5. What is the IMF’s mission and how has that changed over time?

Task 1.2. Consult a dictionary and practice the pronunciation of the following words and word combinations, translate them into Russian and quote the sentences in which they are used in the texts 1 and 2. Submit the examples of your own:

financial institutions, restrictive trade policies, economic debacle, monetary policy, to monitor, short-term loans, balance of payments, emerging market economies, to refinance or defer loans, government subsidies, supervise trade, the Doha Development Round, the GATT agreements, lending capacity, the domestic economy, bilateral free trade, flexible credit line, a quota subscription, democratic accountability.

READING

Text 1

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF)

The decisions made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) affect people around the world. But what is the IMF, why is it important, and what criticism does it face?

International Monetary Fund (IMF), created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, began operations on 1 March 1947. It had its inception on 1 July 1944, when delegates of forty-four nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, and proposed two associated financial institutions – the IMF, with $8 billion capital, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. A recurrence of the restrictive trade policies, exchange instability, and international lending abuses that had characterized the interwar era was feared. After World War I, nations had sought monetary stability by returning to the gold standard, but in many instances the gold standard took the form of a weak version of the gold exchange standard. Its breakdown contributed to the 1929–1936 economic debacle.

The IMF’s original purpose was to support world trade by reestablishing a stable international system. To this end, it was given the mandate to monitor the exchange rate policies of member countries and provide short-term loans in case of balance of payments problems.

Since the IMF and member nations accepted the dollar as equal to gold, the growing number of dollars in their central bank reserves, especially after 1958 and in turn the consequence of chronic U.S. government deficits, stimulated worldwide inflation. The gold exchange standard broke down in 1968–1971, notably after the United States ceased redeeming dollars in gold on 15 August 1971, thereby severely damaging the prestige of the IMF.

With the collapse of fixed exchange rates in 1973, the dominant role of the IMF was to provide financial support for member countries. As of 1993, it had 178 members and had become a major financial intermediary. Its involvement is virtually required before international bankers will agree to refinance or defer loans for Third World countries. The IMF was also instrumental in providing funds for the emerging market economies in eastern Europe following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The fund also provides information to the public, and technical assistance to governments of developing countries.

The latest global crisis uncovered a fragility in the advanced financial markets that soon led to the worst global downturn since the Great Depression. Suddenly, the IMF was inundated with requests for stand-by arrangements and other forms of financial and policy support.

The international community recognized that the IMF’s financial resources were as important as ever and were likely to be stretched thin before the crisis was over. With broad support from creditor countries, the Fund’s lending capacity was tripled to around $750 billion. To use those funds effectively, the IMF overhauled its lending policies, including by creating a flexible credit line for countries with strong economic fundamentals and a track record of successful policy implementation. Other reforms, including ones tailored to help low-income countries, enabled the IMF to disburse very large sums quickly, based on the needs of borrowing countries and not tightly constrained by quotas, as in the past.

The IMF can make loans to member countries through standby arrangements. Depending on the size of the loan, the fund imposes certain conditions. Known as IMF conditionality, these measures often interfere with the sovereignty of member countries with regard to economic policy. IMF conditions can require devaluation of currencies, removal of government subsidies, cuts in social services, control over wages, trade liberalization, and pressure to pursue free-market policies. IMF conditionality has been criticized as being too severe, imposing hardship on debtor countries. Because IMF policies are imposed by an international agency consisting of industrialized countries, they give the appearance of maintaining the dependency of the Third World.

The IMF is an international organisation with 189 member countries. They work together to try to stabilise the global economy. Any country can apply to join, as long as it meets a few requirements. These include providing information about its economy and paying in a sum of money called a quota subscription. The richer the country, the higher its quota.

IMF has two bodies of management: The Board of Governors and The Board of Directors.

Every member country appoints one Governor to participate in the meeting of the Board of Governors. The Board of Governors make the general policy to carry on day-to-day working of IMF. The Board of Directors of the IMF holds the meeting atthe office in Washington. One of the Directors is designated on the Managing Director of IMF. He is the chief executive. Kristalina Georgieva was selected to serve as the IMF managing director in 2019. The economist was previously chief executive of the World Bank, and has succeeded Christine Lagarde.

(Source: International Monetary Fund; James M. Boughton. The IMF and the force of History: Ten Events and Ten Ideas that Have Shaped the Institution. 2004)

Text 2

WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION (WTO)

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The WTO is responsible for monitoring national trading policies, handling trade disputes, and enforcing the GATT agreements, which are designed to reduce tariffs and other barriers to international trade and to eliminate discriminatory treatment in international commerce. The WTO has over 160 members representing 98 per cent of world trade. Over 20 countries are seeking to join the WTO. All major decisions are made by the WTO’s member governments: either by ministers (who usually meet at least every two years) or by their ambassadors or delegates (who meet regularly in Geneva). The WTO’s top decision-­making body is the Ministerial Conference. Below this is the General Council and various other councils and committees. In an effort to promote international agreements, WTO negotiations are conducted in closed sessions; many outsiders have strongly criticized such meetings as antidemocratic. Unlike GATT, the WTO is a permanent body but not a specialized agency of the United Nations; it has far greater power to mediate trade disputes between member countries and assess penalties.

The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948.The organization deals with regulation of trade between participating countries; it provides a framework for negotiating and formalizing trade agreements, and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants’ adherence to WTO agreements which are signed by representatives of member governments and ratified by their parliaments. Most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round (1986–1994).

The organization is attempting to complete negotiations on the Doha Development Round, which was launched in 2001 with an explicit focus on addressing the needs of developing countries. As of June 2012, the future of the Doha Round remains uncertain: the work programme lists 21 subjects in which the original deadline of 1 January 2005 was missed, and the round is still incomplete. The conflict between free trade on industrial goods and services but retention of protectionism on farm subsidies to domestic agricultural sector (requested by developed countries) and the substantiation of the international liberalization of fair trade on agricultural products (requested by developing countries) remain the major obstacles. These points of contention have hindered any progress to launch new WTO negotiations beyond the Doha Development Round. As a result of this impasse, there has been an increasing number of bilateral free trade agreements signed.

As it was mentioned above, the WTO has been the focal point of criticism from people who are worried about the effects of free trade and economic globalisation. Nowadays opposition to the WTO centres on four main points:

• WTO is too powerful, in that it can in effect compel sovereign states to change laws and regulations by declaring these to be in violation of free trade rules.

• WTO is run by the rich for the rich and does not give significant weight to the problems of developing countries. For example, rich countries have not fully opened their markets to products from poor countries.

• WTO is indifferent to the impact of free trade on workers’ rights, child labour, the environment and health.

• WTO lacks democratic accountability, in that its hearings on trade disputes are closed to the public and the media.

Supporters of the WTO argue that it is democratic, in that its rules were written by its member states, many of whom are democracies, who also select its leadership. They also argue that, by expanding world trade, the WTO in fact helps to raise living standards around the world.

Roberto Azevêdo is the sixth Director-­General of the WTO. His appointment took effect on 1 September 2013 for a four-year term. In February 2017, WTO members agreed to appoint Mr Azevêdo for a second four-year term, starting on 1 September 2017. (https://www.wto.org)

COMPREHENSION

Task 1.3. Read the texts about IMF and WTO and give extensive answers to the questions. Use the following expressions to present your answers: It is clear from…that…; I presume…It is argued that…In fact…Speaking about…We can say th

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