India’s economy

印度的經(jīng)濟(jì)

Time for a makeover

改頭換面的時候到了

In its second term, will the ruling coalition be bolder about reform?

在第二個任期內(nèi)，執(zhí)政聯(lián)盟會在改革方面更加大膽嗎?

詞匯

Coalition/聯(lián)合；結(jié)合，合并

INDIA’S NEW finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, is an unusual figure in the country’s politics. She is the first woman to head the finance ministry since Indira Gandhi seized the post (while also serving as prime minister) 50 years ago, after nationalising many of India’s banks. She is an economist. But unlike most in her Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) she hails from the country’s south, having grown up in Tamil Nadu, one of the few big states to resist the BJP’s advances in the recent election. She claims a humbler background than her predecessor, Arun Jaitley. Her father worked for India’s railways and she spent a month selling home furnishings at Habitat, a shop in London.

印度新任財政部長Nirmala Sitharaman在印度政壇是一個不同尋常的人物。自英迪拉?甘地(Indira Gandhi) 50年前將印度許多銀行收歸國有以來，她是首位執(zhí)掌財政部的女性。她是一位經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家。但與她所在的印度人民黨(BJP)的大多數(shù)成員不同，她來自印度南部，在泰米爾納德邦長大。泰米爾納德邦是少數(shù)幾個在最近的選舉中抵制人民黨進(jìn)步的大邦之一。她聲稱自己的背景比她的前任阿倫?杰特利(Arun Jaitley)更為卑微。她的父親在印度鐵路公司工作，她在倫敦的一家商店Habitat賣了一個月的家具。

詞匯

Hail/致敬；招呼；向...歡呼；

?

Ms Sitharaman thus embodies the BJP’s broadening appeal to aspirational Indians outside its traditional heartlands. But will she help it fulfil those aspirations? On the day she was appointed, India’s statistical authority reported that growth in the first quarter of the year had slipped to 5.8%, its slowest since Narendra Modi was elected prime minister in 2014 (see chart). The government also belatedly released a report it had withheld showing that unemployment had risen to 6.1% in the year ending June 2018. In India, the jobless are often not the poorest, who cannot afford not to work, but the newly educated, qualified for better jobs that have yet to arrive.

因此，西塔拉曼女士體現(xiàn)了印度人民黨在其傳統(tǒng)核心地區(qū)之外對有抱負(fù)的印度人日益擴(kuò)大的吸引力。但她會幫助實現(xiàn)這些愿望嗎?在她被任命的當(dāng)天，印度統(tǒng)計部門報告說，今年第一季度的經(jīng)濟(jì)增長已經(jīng)下滑到5.8%，這是自2014年納倫德拉·莫迪當(dāng)選總理以來的最低增速(見圖表)。政府還姍姍來遲地發(fā)布了一份未公布的報告，該報告顯示，在截至2018年6月的一年里，失業(yè)率已升至6.1%。在印度，失業(yè)者往往不是最窮的人，他們沒有錢不工作，而是受過良好教育的人，他們有資格獲得尚未到來的更好的工作。

詞匯

Belatedly/延遲地；延續(xù)地

Withheld/保留；扣留

The prospects for a quick economic recovery depend partly on the banks Ms Gandhi nationalised. They are responsible for most of the bad loans that have long clogged lenders’ balance-sheets. Optimists point out that the share of bad loans has begun to fall. And several troubled banks have been permitted to expand credit after a more lenient official was put in charge of their regulator, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank.

經(jīng)濟(jì)快速復(fù)蘇的前景在一定程度上取決于甘地國有化的銀行。長期以來，銀行的資產(chǎn)負(fù)債表上充斥著大量不良貸款，而這些銀行要為這些不良貸款負(fù)責(zé)。樂觀主義者指出，不良貸款的比例已經(jīng)開始下降。在印度央行——印度儲備銀行(RBI)，這所更寬大的機(jī)構(gòu)人員被任命為監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)負(fù)責(zé)人后，幾家陷入困境的銀行被允許擴(kuò)大信貸。

詞匯

Clog/阻塞；堵住

Lenient/寬大的；仁慈的

?

The RBI cut interest rates for the third time this year on June 6th. It must also keep a close eye on India’s lightly regulated “nonbank” lenders. They have kept credit flowing to households and industry in recent years, financing themselves by selling bonds and commercial paper to yield-hungry mutual funds, until one lender defaulted in September 2018.

6月6日，印度央行今年第三次降息。它還必須密切關(guān)注印度監(jiān)管寬松的“非銀行”放貸機(jī)構(gòu)。近年來，它們一直保持信貸流向家庭和行業(yè)，通過向渴求收益的共同基金出售債券和商業(yè)票據(jù)為自己融資，直到2018年9月一家銀行違約。

詞匯

yield-hungry/追求收益的

?

The prospects for a cyclical recovery seem brighter than the chances of deeper reform. Ms Sitharaman is unlikely to enjoy the same autonomy given to Mr Jaitley, a cabinet heavyweight who helped pave Mr Modi’s path into national politics. His departure due to ill health may mean his boss takes a closer interest in economic affairs. That is not necessarily a good thing.

周期性復(fù)蘇的前景似乎比深化改革的可能性更光明。西塔拉曼不太可能享有賈特利所享有的同樣自治權(quán)。賈特利是內(nèi)閣重量級人物，曾幫助莫迪進(jìn)入國家政治。他由于健康原因離職，這可能意味著他的上司對經(jīng)濟(jì)事務(wù)更加關(guān)注。這未必是件好事。

詞匯

Cabinet/內(nèi)閣的；私下的

?

As chief minister of Gujarat, Mr Modi excelled at drumming up investment from big corporations and breathing down civil servants’ necks. But that approach has translated less well to the role of prime minister, which requires more indirect methods, such as creating the right incentives and delegating to the right people. A bureaucrat quoted in “The Lost Decade”, a new book by Puja Mehra, talks of long, tedious meetings, in which Mr Modi would monitor his policies’ implementation and the civil servant would scoff the peanuts and chickpeas.

作為古吉拉特邦的首席部長，莫迪擅長從大企業(yè)那里爭取投資，并對公務(wù)員施加壓力。但這種方法對總理的作用效果不太好，因為這需要更多間接的方法，比如建立正確的激勵機(jī)制和授權(quán)給正確的人。Puja Mehra的新書《失落的十年》中引用了一位官員的話，他談到了冗長乏味的會議，莫迪會監(jiān)督政策的實施，而公務(wù)員們則會堅決執(zhí)行。

詞匯

Bureaucrat/官僚；官僚主義者

Scoff/嘲笑；嘲弄；狼吞虎咽

After Mr Modi’s first victory in 2014, liberals hoped the pro-business tub-thumper would become a pro-market prime minister, encouraging investment by liberalising labour and land laws, relying on statecraft, not stagecraft. Instead he became what Indians call “pro-poor”, providing a multitude of redistributive welfare schemes, such as cash handouts for small farmers.

2014年莫迪首次獲勝后，自由派人士希望這位親企業(yè)的演說家能成為一名親市場的總理，通過放寬勞工和土地法來鼓勵投資，依靠的是治國之道，而不是舞臺技巧。相反，他成為了印度人所說的“親窮人”，提供了大量的再分配福利計劃，比如向小農(nóng)發(fā)放現(xiàn)金。

詞匯

tub-thumper/傳教士；慷慨激昂的演講者

liberalise/使自由化

statecraft/治國才能；管理國家的本領(lǐng)

stagecraft/編劇才能；演出技術(shù)

?

These schemes seemed inspired by the government’s lingering fear of being outflanked on the left. It largely abandoned its efforts to ease the acquisition of land for industrial purposes after Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition Congress party, accused it of being a “suit-boot ki sarkar”—a government for suited-and-booted corporations. It was slow to help public-sector banks write off their bad loans, in part because it did not want to appear soft on crony capitalists.

這些計劃的靈感似乎來自政府對被左翼包圍的揮之不去的恐懼。在反對黨國大黨領(lǐng)袖拉胡爾?甘地指責(zé)印度政府為“suit-boot ki sarkar ”——“一個穿著正裝的企業(yè)組成的政府”之后，印度政府基本上放棄了放寬工業(yè)用地收購的努力。它在幫助公共部門的銀行注銷不良貸款方面行動遲緩，部分原因是它不想在裙帶資本家面前顯得軟弱無力。

詞匯

Lingering/拖延的，遲遲不結(jié)束的

Outflank/回；挫??；翼側(cè)包圍；智勝

Crony/密友；好朋友

Since this timidity helped win it a second landslide, Mr Modi would seem to have little reason to abandon it. But perhaps his victory has finally killed his fear of the opposition. Ms Sitharaman was described as a “one-person demolition squad” after her impassioned response in parliament to Mr Gandhi’s accusations of government cronyism. Having bulldozed the opposition, perhaps Mr Modi will now feel emboldened not to copy it.

由于這種膽怯幫助它贏得了第二次壓倒性勝利，莫迪似乎沒有理由放棄它。但也許他的勝利最終消除了他對反對派的恐懼。西塔拉曼被形容為“一個人的拆遷隊”，此前她在議會對甘地有關(guān)政府任人唯親的指控做出了慷慨激昂的回應(yīng)。在壓制了反對派之后，莫迪現(xiàn)在或許會有勇氣不再效仿。

詞匯

demolition squad/拆遷隊

impassion/激起…熱情；使激動

cronyism/任人唯親；任用親信

bulldoze/強(qiáng)迫；恫嚇；用推土機(jī)清除